


The Emptiness

by corvusdraconis, Dragon_and_the_Rose



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Norse Religion & Lore, Thor (Movies)
Genre: F/M, Gen, References to Norse Religion & Lore
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-21
Updated: 2018-10-31
Packaged: 2019-08-05 05:27:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 25,824
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16361720
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/corvusdraconis/pseuds/corvusdraconis, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dragon_and_the_Rose/pseuds/Dragon_and_the_Rose
Summary: [Loki/Hermione] Loki and Hermione were doing well until Loki saw something that made him think their relationship was less than he thought it was. Like a proper God of Mischief, he takes it out on everything around him. Meanwhile, others help Hermione piece her life back together— without that magic-flinging idiot god of Åsgard.(M) for language





	1. Chapter 1

 

 **Beta Love:**  The Dragon and the Rose and Dutchgirl01 with Flyby Commander Shepard

 **A/N:**  was supposed to be a one shot… why does that never work...

* * *

**The Emptiness**

**Chapter One**

_Once I knew only darkness and stillness... my life was without past or future... but a little word from the fingers of another fell into my hand that clutched at emptiness, and my heart leaped to the rapture of living._

Helen Keller

"You're an  _idiot_ ," Thor said as he brushed away a part of a bridge that his brother had collapsed on top of him. "Stop taking your temper tantrum out on the mortals because you can't admit to yourself that you fucked up."

Thor dodged a blast of magic and the poor pigeon nest that toppled from above. He frowned as the pigeon ended up on his head.

 _Coo_ , said the pigeon.

"You know nothing," Loki hissed, throwing another blast of magic.

Thor stepped aside— again. He sighed. "How many more bridges are you going to blow up, brother? Surely you must tire of it."

Yet another piece of the bridge jerked and twisted as the concrete separated from the steel.

"Nope, still amusing," Loki replied, his lip curling. He sent another blast at the bridge, and another piece of it came crashing down.

"You think blasting a bridge is going to somehow make it all better?"

"Well,  _ **I**_  feel better," Loki snarked.

"Well, the  _bridge_ has had better moments!" Thor said, gesturing to the collapsing bridge. He looked up at it. "I rather liked that bridge."

"By all means, put it back together," Loki said invitingly. "I'll take it back down."

"Mature."

"Like  _you're_ one to talk, Mr I'll-wrestle-frost-bears-starkers because I need to show Jane I'm a  _real_ man."

"That was just once!"

"Once was all I needed to see," Loki sniffed.

"You're miserable without her."

"Like you're one to talk!" Loki hissed. "You stomp around Åsgard. Jane this. Jane that. Why aren't you over there giving her a good shag instead of—"

_**THWACK!** _

Thor's fist sent Loki tumbling arse over teakettle into the bridge, and even more of it crashed down.

Thor twitched.

And crashed down.

Thor winced again.

More crashed down.

Thor slumped.

People with cell phones took pictures of him, pointing, fingers and whispering.

Thor sighed. Why did it  _always_ end up being his fault?

-o-o-o-o-o-

As Loki walked up to the small cottage he was assaulted by an entire flock of small angry birds that pecked mercilessly at his face, hands and exposed skin.

He winced, beating off the birds with his hands, and they poofed in a cloud of feathers after making a disturbing popping noise. He trudged further up the path and was attacked by brassed-off mini-quetzalcoatls this time. They flared their feathered manes at him and hissed angrily, spitting venom at his face and eyes.

"Bloody hell," Loki cursed. "Since when do quetzalcoatls expel venom like a sodding spitting cobra?" He staggered through, giving the annoyed serpents a wide berth as he tried to see through his stinging eyes.

_**KerTHUMP!** _

Loki found himself flat on his arse in a shrubbery with a hippogriff giving him the fish eye as it chewed on its ferret dinner. He rubbed his ribs where the irritated bird-beast had kicked him. He was starting to wonder if there was another God of Mischief reigning over Britain.

Standing up, wincing as he did so, he gave the cranky hippogriff a wide berth as well. He'd taken a few steps when his boots caught on a strand of silk and send him tripping forward until he smashed his head against the door of the cottage. He fell backwards on the path with a piteous groan as a clutter of startled-looking, overly fluffy arachnids scurried over from the door.

" _Oops."_

" _Do we get extra points for tripping the God of Mischief?"_

" _I think so."_

" _Not very coordinated, is he?"_

" _You sure he's a god?"_

" _Well he's a Norse god. They do have flaws."_

" _Many flaws if you read the books."_

" _Maybe we should add that to the list."_

" _Isn't he supposed to be a giant with ginger hair?"_

" _Don't believe everything you read."_

The spiders disappeared under the door, squeezing through the crack like mouse with a flexible spine.

Loki groaned. "What  _else_ can possibly go—"

An orange feline yawned and pushed a clay tile off the roof, causing it to crash down on top of Loki's head. The half-Kneazle jumped down and neatly flung himself through the open window, disappearing into the cottage.

Loki lay supine. " _Ow_."

-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-

"I am the  _ **GOD**_ of Mischief!" Loki proclaimed. "Mischief should follow in  _my_  wake not come before me and smack me in the face!"

Loki found himself holding a basket of dead ferrets as a herd of hungry hippogriffs mobbed him for food, kicking him around when he didn't have the mind to bow properly.

The hippogriffs whirled around to take their food elsewhere, but not before they smacked him soundly about the head with their dead ferrets and stepped on his toes with their hooves.

Loki's eyebrows twitched as he stormed toward the cottage on a mission.

His foot promptly hit a pile of fresh hippogriff dung and he went sliding onto his back.

The mini-quetzalcoatls popped out of the nearby rosebush and spit venom into his eyes before disappearing back into the garden.

Loki moaned.

"Bloody arse-badgers."

-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-

"You must be able to do  _some_ thing, Thor. I'm not sure how many more bridges the world can take being blown up," Stark said. "Can't you just brain him over the head with some of that Asgardian mead you're so fond of and have him cope like a  _normal_ person?"

"My brother was never much of a drinker," Thor sighed.

"Maybe he should start," Tony muttered as he tweaked a schematic on a 3D tablet protector. "Fury is up in arms as it is, saying he has to reimburse the hocus pocus people and the Supreme Pizza for their emergency time putting the bridges back together to— how was it— keep the world from falling to pieces because they can't get to the bar after work."

"That does not sound right," Thor said, scrunching up his face.

"Don't go thinking on me now, blondie," Starke snarked.

Thor scowled. "Wait.  _You_ were the one who pointed my brother toward Lady Hermione to begin with to get Doctor Strange out of your little meeting."

"It was  _not_ little. It was a date. With Pepper. Far more important than world peace. Besides for almost a whole year he didn't destroy any bridges or subjugate any cities, blow up skyscrapers, or bring down alien invasions to destroy Earth."

"He rolled that fungus wheel all around the River Thames."

"Ferris Wheel, and that does  _ **NOT**_ count. Nothing on the other side of the ocean counts," Tony muttered.

"Sir, technically you  _did_ say any cities—"

"Shut up, Jarvis, that's an order."

"Shutting up… sir."

Thor slammed his hands down on the desk together, glowering darkly. "You got my younger brother infatuated with an Earthwoman just so you could go out on a  _ **date**_?"

Tony tweaked the schematic with his fingers. "Look, I know it sounds bad, but technically she's one of those hocus pocus fancy stick-waving people who open up dimensional portals and shove demons through them."

"Sorcerer," Thor said.

"Fancy robes. Fancy words. Fancy sticks. Still sticks." Tony waved him off his schematic. "Suits your brother. All that fancy pantsy mumbo jumbo he likes."

Mjölnir slammed into the middle of his hologram. The schematic was jarbled and formed into a rather naughty video of himself and Pepper getting it on on the roof of Starke Enterprises.

Tony frantically tried to dispel it, but Mjölnir was right in the middle, creating some sort of loopback circuit.

The sound of a crashed tea service rang out.

Thor and Tony looked up to see Pepper staring at the video loop, her bright red hair seemingly writhing like Medusa's serpents.

"What the  _ **HELL**_ is that, Tony?!"

Tony swallowed hard. "I uh. Well. This isn't what it looks like."

The video continued provide a loop displaying the damning evidence.

-o-o-o-o-o-

Stephen Strange eyed the mini quetzalcoatl that was lapping cream out of his coffee.

"Not that I think rebuilding the infrastructure of various cities isn't a great way to train our young initiates, Hermione, and as much as Wong loves having Fury paying through his teeth to have us do the work he can't do in a timely manner— how long do you think it's going to take for this… ah, particular disagreement to be resolved?"

Hermione Granger, teacher, caretaker, witch, and sorceress, sipped her tea as she rubbed her finger under the chin of one of the quetzalcoatls, which purred in appreciation. "When he pulls his arrogant head out from his arse," she said.

Her hair seemed to  _writhe_ , but aethereal serpents rose from her hair and hissed in displeasure.

"Those are new," Stephen said, arching a brow.

Hermione sighed. "It is increasingly hard to teach in a Wizarding school when interdimensional friends choose to follow me home. Not that I can't teach, but trying to explain why random things they've never seen before and can't find a reference to just pops out of my storage room, hair, desk, supply shelves—"

"You could take on a sorcerer's apprentice," Strange suggested. "You're more than capable of handling one."

Hermione snorted. "The last one I took on ran screaming back to you saying they couldn't handle it."

"She's not giving Wong any better attitude," Strange admitted. "She comes from a family of magic users, but it's a different sort of magic. A lot like your Wizarding magic. She's convinced if she can do it her way that she doesn't need to learn our way. That attitude will get her killed the moment she tries to use Earth-magic on a Sargothian Demon and gets her brains sucked out through her nostrils."

"Please, Master. I'm drinking my tea." Hermione drank down the last of her tea as a rampaging clutter of fluffy spiders scurried off with the cup and set down a new one.

Dr Strange shook his head as he watched the dutiful spiders tending eagerly to their mistress' cottage. "How is it that you can bring home all sorts of helpful and engaging creatures, and I can barely keep my own cloak in order?"

The levitation cloak in question promptly smacked him upside the head.

"I rest my case."

Hermione chuckled. "If it makes you feel any better, the hippogriffs are from Earth and they don't like anyone right now. It's their breeding season, you see."

Stephen groaned. "Bad enough with Clea fell in love with one and wanted to adopt it."

"I warned you about sending messengers instead of coming yourself, Master."

"Stephen, please. Cripes, if anyone deserves to call me by name it's you. Not Master. Not Sorcerer Supreme, not— just Stephen."

Hermione laughed. "I can't help that you were so hung up on me calling you by your title that it traumatises me to call you by your name."

He rubbed the bridge of his nose. "I was a right idiot about that. Can we just strike that from the collective memory of my younger years?"

"Feeling centuries old already?"

"Undoubtedly." He sipped contentedly on his refilled coffee. "I think you're the only one who can claim to have confronted Death at a young age and living to tell about it."

"I did not confront, Master," Hermione huffed. "Honestly. I invited him over to tea, gave him back his Hallows, and he then adopted me."

Strange gave her a long-suffering look. "Really, we're arguing semantics of  _how_ you effectively became immortal?"

"I did not intend to."

"Well I certainly didn't either," Strange protested. "Besides, Death was female to me, and she did not adopt me."

"I was cuter," Hermione said with a disarming shrug. "As I said, I just wanted to make sure no one got any ideas after the last Wizarding war, especially after Ronald wrote that ridiculous memoir about our supposed adventures and Harry allegedly being the Master of Death. Mind you, sorcery definitely helped with the finding of a stone buried under years of hoofbeats and various other natural weathering. Harry gave me the cloak after Ronald used it to cheat on Lavender, and the pieces of the broken wand were in an old eagle nest in the river canyon. After you sent me on that wild goose chase looking for your lost watch, finding a broken wand was easy."

"I'll have you know it was not a wild goose chase. You  _did_ find the watch."

Hermione sighed. "And about a hundred other artefacts that has Wong thinking I robbed some magical archive in Fifth Space."

Stephen snorted. "I unfortunately make him very suspicious. I used to steal books from his library using pocket dimensional holes."

"And  _you_ admonished me for reading too many books?"

"Yes, because you read far too many. What first month apprentice reads half the library before she even finishes her first classes?"

Hermione's hair-snakes hissed. "This gal."

Strange sighed. "I suppose if anyone can hold three jobs in the various universes it would be you."

Hermione smiled.

"So, in all seriousness," Strange said. "When are you going forgive Loki so we're not constantly fixing the architecture of the entire Nine Realms. If it were some normal even magical bloke, you know I wouldn't care, but this is Loki we're talking about. He never does  _any_ thing small."

Hermione shook her head. "No, he doesn't. But, he accused me of being a harlot and a whore, spreading my legs as a courtesan in a vain attempt to sleep my way into Åsgard. Considering I have never even had the dubious pleasure of meeting the family in Åsgard, I can only presume that someone, somewhere led him to believe that I was less than faithful to him."

Hermione suddenly turned a little green and rushed to a small chest on the hearth. She opened it, took out a phial, uncorked it, sniffed it, and then chugged it, bracing herself on the fireplace as she waited. Her colour slowly returned to normal, and she looked less green.

Her head-snakes hissed worriedly, nudging her gently as their shimmering aether tongues flicked.

Strange's eyes widened. "How long?"

Hermione sighed, wiping her brow. "About three months." She stared out the window. "I can only presume it was just before all the accusations."

Doctor mode having successfully been engaged, Stephen beckoned her over and cast a few diagnostic spells over her. "Have any symptoms other than the nausea?"

"The nausea is quite enough, thank you," Hermione said, making a face.

"I know you make potions that consider your condition, but if you need anything at all—"

Hermione touched his hand. "Thank you, Stephen. I will certainly tell you if something happens."

The Sorcerer Supreme nodded. "I feel like I should grab him by the throat and shake some sense into him over some hellish dimension. Just out of principle."

Hermione laughed and then sobered. "If he can't see that he did anything wrong, then I don't want to see him back here. I will raise our—  _my_ — child alone. Without him."

Stephen clasped her hand. "Hermione, you need not raise the child alone. I will— hell, Wong loves children, it's scary how much he loves kids— so many of us would truly enjoy having a child around. Do not hold yourself apart from us like you're facing a prison sentence."

Hermione smiled. "Thanks. I won't. I guess I'm just— I thought I knew him. I thought— I meant something more than just…" She trailed off sadly. "I guess I should have known better."

Stephen stood up and sighed, "I have to go tend a rip in the Veil somewhere over Arkansas, but I promise I will be back to check on you."

"You don't—"

Stephen hushed her with a gentle finger. "I  _will_. We will all be there for you in this, Hermione."

Hermione looked like she wanted to say something to dismiss him, but she sighed. "Thank you, Master."

"Stephen."

"Maphen."

Strange laughed. He tenderly placed a kiss on her head and then he vanished through a dimensional portal.

The mini quetzalcoatls hissed at her.

"Yes, I know, loves, bedtime."

The spiders already had her bed prepared, and her toothbrush was waiting there on the sink with the minty paste already applied.

Hermione touched the slight swell that was her belly. "Well, at least I'm not alone."

She marched her way to the sink to wash up for bed, waving one hand to extinguish the lanterns on her way.

Crookshanks yawned as he kneaded her pillow, waiting for his mistress to come to bed.

* * *

As Hermione stepped out to do her daily chores and feed the hippogriffs before they started to kick down the side of her cottage, she suddenly found herself face to muzzle with a gigantic wolf.

The wolf had the orneriest of the hippogriffs pinned by the neck, keeping him from taking his testosterone out on the side of her cottage again. The other hippogriffs milled about, looking decidedly less inclined to destructive kicking.

The wolf's tail beat against the ground, causing the flower planter on the window to jostle about.

"To what do I owe the pleasure?" Hermione asked in a slow drawl, admonishing herself mentally for sounding a bit too much like a Malfoy.

The wolf whined, tongue lolling as he smacked his paw over the hippogriff every time the stallion tried in vain to go for the wolf's face.

"You can let him up now. He knows better. If he goes for your eyes, just eat him."

The wolf perked at that and the hippogriff seemed to realise his bluff had been well and truly called.

The wolf let the hippogriff up, perhaps hoping for a morning snack, and the stallion shot off into the rest of the herd, hiding with his females.

The females didn't look very impressed, but they weren't trying to kick down her walls, either.

"Hrm, the other males are missing. Did you happen to show them the door?"

The wolf licked his chops.

Hermione pinched the bridge of her nose. "Well, that's one way to end the rutt. I do hope you didn't eat the bay spotted one, though. He was a real pill. Probably give you a nasty case of indigestion."

The wolf beat his tail against the ground.

"You're quite huge, you know," Hermione said. She walked over to her huge garden and traced an arcane glyph in the air. A storm cloud formed overhead and drizzled over the vegetable and potions garden in a steady stream. She pulled out her wand and used  _Aguamenti_ to manually water her beloved collection of English roses.

The mini-quetzals came out and shook their feathered manes as she watered their roses. They opened their mouths to catch the water and flew off to frolic in the garden.

Hermione chuckled.

The wolf whined, his warm, wet nose snuffling her hair.

The aethreal serpents rose up and snapped at his muzzle, unimpressed with introductions.

Hermione put up her wand and looked the wolf in the eyes. "What am I going to do with you?"

The giant wolf panted good-naturedly and gave her an extra long slurp.

Hermione dripped and conjured herself a towel. "I'm naming you Sir Drippy. Sid for short."

The wolf cocked his head and tail wagged.

"You wouldn't happen to be able to make yourself smaller, hrm?"

Sid seemed to frown in concentration. His body pulled into itself and the giant wolf became a adorable and fluffy little wolf pup.

Hermione picked Sid up. "Awwww, you're so adorable."

Whuft!

Sid wagged his tail in approval as she carried him into the house with her.

* * *

Hermione boggled as Sid proudly presented her with a supposedly extinct auroch. She hadn't seen him as much as made an educated guess due to the distinctive tooth marks around the body of the huge ox.

"Erm," Hermione said, staring down at the huge animal. "Thanks?"

Sid lay on his back, begging for belly rubs.

Hermione picked up Sid and snuggled him close.

* * *

Hermione frowned as she realised she was out of black pearl powder.

"Bother," she muttered.

She picked up her collecting basket and trudged out the door of her cottage and ran face first into Harry Potter.

"Oof," Harry exclaimed, trying very hard not to fall on his arse.

"Oh! Harry! Did I mix up the days for our tea?"

Harry blinked. "No."

Hermione tilted her head. She quickly checked on the roasting ox over the spit. The mini quetzals were happily and dutifully both turning the spit for her as the scent of fragrant roasting meat filled the area. . She pet them appreciatively and they hummed back to her.

"Oh, well, hello, then," she sputtered. She tossed him an sea gathering basket-cage and beckoned. "Here, come and make yourself useful then. I'm completely out of black pearl powder."

Before Harry could say otherwise, Hermione walked down the path to the beach where the lagoon opened out to the sea.

Harry followed, getting practically bowled over by a wolf that followed behind Hermione like a loyal hound.

"Uh, Hermione?"

"Yes, Harry?"

"When did you get a wolf?"

"Oh last month," she replied. "He just, uh— showed up one day."

"Oh," Harry said, seeming a little at a loss for words. "Aren't you a little worried about that?" He stared at the herd of huge oxen milling about as they chewed on the lush beach grass. Weren't those… extinct?

"He's quite well behaved," Hermione said. "And he fetches me various extinct species. It's quite nice. The dodo birds are over on the other cliff, working on repopulating their species."

Harry's eyebrow twitched.

Hermione performed a complex tracing as a magic circle moved up from the ground and over her and back down. Her clothes changed into a Muggle wetsuit, and she dove into the water. "Hurry up, Harry. The best ones are found during the high tide." She turned into a sea otter and promptly dove under the water.

"Damnit, Hermione, I'm a stag not a water mammal!" Harry said, pointing his wand at himself as he changed his robes into swimming trunks and putting a bubble-head charm over his head. He dove in after her.

Hermione's seeded oyster bed had grown by leaps and bounds, and she had not neglected the gillyweed, either. Harry grabbed some as he passed, stuffing it in his mouth. He sighed with relief as he was able to dispel the bubble-head charm and swim more naturally under the tides.

He saw Hermione moving around, using a stone to chip the oysters off the bed. She stuffed them into her otter-pockets and then went up to the surface, stuffing the oysters into the baskets the wolf was holding as he paddled about in the kelp forest.

Harry continued to use his wand to scan the bed the wizard-way and stuffed his basket with pearl-laden oysters. He found it oddly soothing being under the water, and he admitted to himself that maybe Luna had been right about finding peace amongst the water-dwelling Zembukratiens. He had no idea what those were, but they supposedly lived in the ocean and emitted relaxing vibes when under water— hence why people found it relaxing to be in water.

That didn't quite explain why some people were terrified of being in the ocean, but— at least it made  _some_ sense.

An otter whizzed by Harry's head, making a series of chittering squeaks as she passed by. Her webbed feet ruffled his hair just before her long tail smacked up against his cheek.

Harry spluttered and swam up to the surface to find himself staring at the head of the largest sea serpent he had ever seen in his life— or rather said serpents rows of many, many teeth.

_**SKRONK!** _

Harry yelped as his magic twisted to his panic and will and he suddenly became a sea lion with a black mop-like fro on his head.

"I think I'm starting to see a pattern here," Hermione's voice reached Harry. He looked up to see Hermione floating in the air with her legs crossed. She had her hands in a meditative stance as magic runic circles swirled around her.

 _Sorceress_.

Damn if she wasn't more intimidating now than she had ever been before. Ron might've turned out to be an unmitigated arse but he did say it first: Hermione was brilliant, but scary.  _Very_ scary.

"Thank you for the Megalodon, but before I accept it, I want to make one thing clear. Are you here on Loki's orders or to help  _him_ in any way?"

Harry stared as the giant serpent rose up and tilted its great head, waves of ocean water sliding off its smooth hide.

A giant— no gargantuan— wolf browled from the shore, his tail wagging madly.

 _Holy f_ — Harry half-bleated in seal-ese.

The great serpent lightly pressed its nose against Hermione's abdomen, most of its body still hidden in the waves. Its tongue flicked reverently.

 _We are here for you, Lady Hermione,_ Harry heard the creature's voice in his head— almost painfully clear. The voice was undoubtedly male, and it seemed to echo the sound of countless screams.

"And if Loki were to show up, would that change?"

The serpent and the wolf exchanged glances.  _It would not. Our father is great but insecure. We are not insecure. We will stay at your side until the Realms are long cold and the Cosmos is ash and memory."_

"That is a very long time," Hermione said, strangely nonplussed about speaking to a giant serpent and an equally giant wolf.

_We will stay at your side as the skies burn. We will stay at your side even as Ragnarök falls upon us. We will protect you and only you. We will serve you and only you. This we swear._

The serpent's many, many rows of teeth glinted blindingly, and Harry was ready to flee in any given direction and not stop until he ended on some distant peaceful shore.

Hermione floated silently, standing as she did so. She gently pressed her head to the serpent's nostrils and breathed into them, sharing her breath with his. "And what would you ask of me?"

 _Trust us as no other has trusted us,_  the serpent said.

 _Trust us as no God has ever trusted us,_ the wolf said at the same time.

 _And we shall serve you unto death or the end of all things,_ they said together.

Harry watched as Hermione landed on the shore next to the giant wolf. The wolf was larger than life— larger than anything that should ever be able to walk the Earth and not be dragged down by the force of gravity.

The wolf lowered its head and opened its mouth.

Hermione put her arm in as the wolf's jaws clamped shut.

" _ **NO!"**_  Harry yelled, mustering his courage as he leapt from the water, his magic forcing him back into human form. He had his wand in his hand, and he threw spells at the wolf, convinced that his naive Hermione had just allowed a myth to devour her one bite at a time.

His spells hit a barrier, and Harry gasped when he realised Hermione herself had erected it. Her free hand was splayed outwards, forcing the barrier between Harry and the wolf. Her other hand, caught between the wolf's jaws, turned as black as char as the wolf's saliva stained her hand with its own primordial magic. Blackness as dense as ink trailed up her arm and shaped into the twisting, knot-like pattern of swirls and knots and the gaping maw of World Wolf. The wolf's eyes glowed an eerie green and blue, alternating between the two colours of balefire, the inner pupil a radiant orange-yellow of the sun.

_**Flfffffllop!** _

Hermione had a happy wolf pup in her arms, and she snuggled him closely, burying her face into his fluffy fur. The ink spread down her body taking up half of her all the way down to her toes.

"Hello, Fenrir," she said warmly. "I hope you don't mind if I still call you Sid."

She set the pup down and walked to the edge of the beach, raising her arms up to the great serpent—

And his jaws crashed down upon her, devouring her whole.

Harry was just about to come completely unglued when Luna showed up, paddling a kayak out into the ocean. "I wouldn't worry so much, Harry. Consider it kind of a hug— only with the mouth."

Harry twitched, then yelped, "Luna, get out of the ocean now! It's  _ **dangerous!"**_

"Don't be silly, love. I'm wearing a perfectly fine pair of galoshes."

Harry frowned.

The serpent opened his mouth, and Hermione walked out of it and onto shore. The entire other side of her body was covered in more knotwork, this time depicting the serpent. "Try not to panic Harry too much, Jörmungandr," she said as she placed her hand on his snout. "He's had a pretty rough morning."

The great serpent hissed laughter and dove back under the waves, disappearing from sight but not from mind.

Luna paddled back to the shore. "Did you get your black pearls, Hermione? I'm feeling rather parched and would really like to have a cup of tea and some lunch, perhaps even both at the same time."

Hermione chuckled gave Luna a hug. "Tea and lunch it is then," she said, using an intricate gesture and chain of strange sounds to send the cages flying up to the cottage.

Sid went bolting off after them with clear enthusiasm, his tail waving like a flag.

"Do I get to help you decorate the baby's room?" Luna asked casually. "I know some great designs created to keep out Nargles and other pests."

Hermione chuckle-snorted. "Of course, Luna.

Harry, who had just crawled his way back to semi- coherency, fell back into the sand in shock.

" _ **Baby?!"**_

A crab crawled up on his face and pinched his nose.

" _ **OW!"**_

* * *

"What are you doing here, Supreme Pistachio?" Stark declared more than asked.

Dr Strange raised an eyebrow. "This is a public park, Mr Stark. Unless something bizarre has happened throughout the country, that means anyone is welcome."

"Well, what do you want from us  _normal_ folks?" Tony asked, sipping his coffee.

Tony winced as a hand came out of nowhere and smacked him upside the head.

"Tony," Pepper said evenly. "You're out in public. That means you have to try and pretend to be civil."

Stark, catching "the tone", winced and sighed. "Thor is over there, trying to figure out if the koi strip the flesh off bone like the fish back home in Aswarta."

"Åsgard?"

"Whatever."

"Miss Potts," Stephen said, nodding his head.

Pepper gave him her best smile. "Doctor Strange."

Stephen shook his head and walked toward the pond, ignoring Pepper repeatedly smacking Tony's shoulder in reprimand.

Stephen walked over to where Thor was staring into the fish pond with a severe look of concentration.

"Why do these fish not strip the meat off the quacking birds?"

Strange frowned. "They are not piranha of Earth or the infamous Pira of Åsgard," he replied.

The ducks and geese milled about, hoping for food. The colourful koi did the same.

Strange conjured a bag of heavily seeded multi-grain bread and tossed it out for the birds, making sure to throw some over to Thor. Thor, however, didn't know what to do with it, and ended up with bread and excited waterfowl swarming him.

Stephen rubbed the bridge of his nose.

"Thor, if you have a moment, I would like to speak with you on a matter of mutual interest."

"You wish to hunt Magma dragons with me?"

"Erm, no."

"Smash the skulls of attacking Ettin?"

"I'll pass."

"Get rip-roaringly drunk while telling epic tales of our mutual exploits in heroism?"

Stephen rubbed his head. "Not  _quite_."

Thor's eyes widened. "You wish to watch me make love to my most beautiful Jane?"

" _ **No!"**_  Strange blurted. "No, no, and  _ **no!"**_

Thor looked at him curiously through his newly-acquired mane of hungry waterfowl. "Do tell. Those would be my first topics of interest."

Stephen sighed. "Look, how serious  _was_ Loki with Hermione?"

Thor sobered immediately. "I had never seen him so serious about anything."

"And then one day he was blowing up bridges across the world."

"I can only presume that she found him lacking in some way," Thor said thoughtfully. "Jane says this is normal. I do not quite understand it, but she seems to think it makes it easier to relate to me. My brother, however, would not take being found lacking in any way very well."

Strange frowned. "No, I mean—" He tugged at his collar, and his levitation cloak smacked his face. "If he was truly as serious as you say, why would he just have a temper tantrum all across Earth?"

Thor rubbed his chin. A goose honked from atop his head. "The only thing greater than my brother's belief in his personal superiority is his insecurity. It is a strange thing that I have only begun to see clearly. It is not that he is not talented. He has always been— thinky. He broods over skill and plans. He values a plot over a good sword." Thor seemed thoughtful. "I can only imagine that he found some great insult in something, whether it be true or not, and then could not let it go. He did this for my father's sins, thinking that he withheld the truth of his birth to make him less my brother. We still fight over such things. He thinks All-Father never intended my brother to have power because of his birth, but I believe it has more to do with what he does with the power that he has."

Thor removed the goose from his head only to have a duckling take its place. "I once abused my power too, thinking myself entitled to the throne. This did not help our relationship. It only proved his assumptions. Now, I do not want the throne, yet I must come to terms that it  _will_ be mine, eventually."

Strange furrowed his brows. "What does your family think of Hermione?"

Thor scowled. "She is strong, powerful. She, like Jane, has an indomitable will. But, power means nothing to Åsgard if it is fleeting. We measure our lives in thousands. Humans are but a raindrop to our ocean. That is all my father sees. He wishes Jane to take the test of godhood to prove her worth. He does not understand that I did not fall for Jane because I wanted her to be a goddess."

"But what of the others?"

Thor looked up, perhaps searching for answers. The duckling flapped off to land in the pond.

"Heimdall is neutral in most things. All-Father probably knows. He makes it his business to know, especially when the last year had been positively peaceful in comparison. That makes him more suspicious. Mother, I am not sure. She tends to keep her opinions to herself."

"So more are in the know, but they pretend they do not," Strange said. "How backwards."

"To admit Hermione that is significant is to defy All-Father's belief that Midgardians are only fit to be guided and protected. They cannot share the same table."

"Because of a lifespan, truly?" Strange asked, boggling.

"Father accused Jane of being a goat at the table."

"Wow." Stephen shook his head. "So they truly have  _no_ idea."

Thor tilted his head. "About?"

Strange's expression hardened. "Hermione is a witch, which already increased her lifespan. She is also a sorceress, which upon confronting Death, could have given her ageless immortality—"

"Could have?"

"Death took a shine to her and adopted her. She is of his Get. She will exist as long as Death exists."

"How is that—"

"Are you telling me you'd question Death about what It can or cannot do?"

Thor's brows furrowed. "I suppose not, but we are accustomed to two places as Asgardians: Valhalla for the brave mortals who die like heroes and Hel in Helheim for those who died of illness, old age, or lack of bravery. When All-Father cast Hel into the underworld, she made it her own realm, making herself queen of the dead. To many,  _she_ is Death."

Stephen read between the lines. "But she is not."

"Few who would face her would say so to her face, even the brave, for she carved her place into the underworld herself."

Thor looked at Strange as an epiphany crawled into his thoughts. "You think someone who did not know of Lady Hermione's true Lineage may have been attempting to drive a wedge between her and my brother?"

"It is a logical presumption. If one either wished for him to pick a more 'worthy' individual or sow chaos, it could all be done via the same tactic."

Thor frowned.

"My brother claimed that Lady Hermione had made herself a whore to Åsgard," Thor said. "I thought— it was just the anger talking. I never actually believed she would sleep with another."

"Yet, he believes she has?"

Thor nodded grimly. "Somehow, he had reason to believe that Lady Hermione was not faithful to him. Father is much too forward to result to trickery. Mother would never do harm to any potential grandchild. Heimdall is allergic to drama of any kind. It must be someone outside Åsgard or—"

Thor frowned. "Or someone inside Åsgard with grudge."

"And how many of Åsgard would wish harm upon your brother?"

Thor's expression sobered. "Almost everyone."

Strange scowled. "Well, that isn't exactly helpful."

* * *

Hermione frowned as she found the bloody and beaten body of a giant dog in her garden, having been pulverised by angry, angry hippogriffs, spat upon by venomous mini-quetzalcoatls, trampled by Aurochs, envenomated by a giant world-serpent, and mauled by a very unimpressed world-wolf.

The great dog was black as pitch with only crimson rivers to mark the contours of its body. The dark fur was matted and dirty with neglect, whether by self or another's hand, Hermione wasn't quite sure. Even without the various attacks against it, scars criss-crossed the dog's body as a testament to a very hard life.

When she tried to approach, the dog growled and snapped, trying to get her between its massive jaws, but the very action was clearly agony.

"So, I suppose it was about time for an attack," Hermione mused, sighing as she looked over the latest arrival. She looked over to Sid, who was currently in pup-form and looking cute, adorable, harmless and totally not I-just-trounced-your-attacker-and-handed-it-their-face.

Hermione cast a low-grade diagnostic scan over the injured canine and realised it was amazing that the dog could move at all.

"Easy now, I can't help you if you get all squirmy on me." She called upon the Principalities to create a binding circle— one of her Master's favourite tools. At least, she figured, if things went pear-shaped, at least a giant murderous canine wouldn't be free to roam the Earth.

She reached out to start a pain-numbing spell.

_**SNAP!** _

The dog's jaws crushed down upon her outstretched arm, the harsh sound of enamel on bone sent a disturbing resonance through the garden.

Sid looked up, his ears pinned back and teeth bared.

But Hermione hadn't moved. She stood there as her flesh seemed to rot away, turning black and peeling off, exposing bleached white bones underneath. Her eyes sank into the sockets as the skin pulled back across her skull, showing a disturbing half-skull snarl. Thin flesh pulled back from eerily unnatural teeth that seemed more beast than human. A dark cloud of vapour poofed from between her jaws.

"Are you quite through?" Hermione's voice hissed from the skull-face. "If you are out for blood, I fear I have none to offer but dust and bones." The thin coating of flesh and skin seemed to dissolve away from around her already horrific visage, and only the bones remained. Golden suns glowed from inside the eye sockets. "You see, the Sorcerer Supreme of Earth calls upon the Principalities, something he taught me during our apprenticeship together, but I went and did something unheard of. I sought out Death. Now, before you get all snarly,  _no_ , I was not seeking my own. I had something of His that He had been searching for. I gave them back. For this service, He asked if there was anything I desired."

Hermione clenched her bone hands as a glowing green fire spread across her body. "I asked for only one thing— that He leave in peace with His Hallows." Hermione's skull-face twisted into an eerie smile, made all the more so by the fact it was bone twisting and reforming to make the expression. "I did not know this at the time, but every Realm has a Sorcerer Supreme— one who safeguards the Realm to which they are irrevocably tied. I had tied myself to the Realm of Death— in touching all of His Objects, they left an indelible Mark upon me. So He adopted me, taking me to his breast and made me kin that I may call upon His Principality— death— for only those of Death may call upon Death, and only those of His Get may pass from His Domain to others without finding themselves unable to leave without His blessing."

"Now, I'm sure you're wondering why I'm yammering on so— but let's just say you just took a bite out of one of Death's Get, hrm? I'm sure one such as you can piece together what that means for you? I can send you back to your master as a pile of bones, or we can have a discussion like the kind of civilised not-quite human entities that we both seem to be."

The canine's eyes were very wide, ears pinned to their head. It released her arm and cowered, tail tuckrf between the legs and both neck and belly exposed in unmistakable surrender.

Hermione knelt beside the great dog and placed her bone hands on its body. Flesh formed around the bones once more, bringing a less supernatural appearance to what was once unmistakably Death.

_Serve you. Serve. You. Mistress. Take me. Take me. Forever. Serve you!_

The stream of meaning rather than words formed into a coherent stream from the canine.

Hermione's hands touched the dog's muzzle. "To serve me is forever. I would not ask that of you in duress."

_Forever. Yes! Mistress. Please?_

"If that is what you truly wish, then give me your true name."

 _Garmr._ The name was clear as a bell.  _I am yours._

Hermione gently stroked the great canine's head. "Rest now, Garmr."

The dog exhaled with such profound relief that a strong wind seemed to blow outward from her maw. Its—  _her_ — tail slowly thumped against the ground.

 _Yes. Relief. At last!_ A rush of binding heat and magic bound the hound to Hermione with mutual agreement.

Hermione released the binding circle and sighed as Sid head-bumped under her hand and snuggled her.

_Browl!_

"I love you too, Sid," she said quietly. "Thank you for not killing her."

Sid wagged his tail, always happy to serve.

Hermione placed a hand on her ever-growing belly and sighed. "Now if I could only get some quality sleep."

* * *

A lone figure walked along the Bifröst, unchallenged save for one.

Heimdall ran towards the figure, his sword out and golden eyes blazing only for him to see— really see— exactly what he was running towards.

Heimdall screeched to a halt, his dark face abruptly paling.

Though he towered over the intruder, Heimdall did not look reassured in the slightest.

The lone figure turned, its face shadowed by an inky black hood.

"L-Lord Death," Heimdall stammered in a shocked, reverent whisper. "I was not told to expect you." Heimdall seemed confused as to the spectre's unexpected appearance.

"Actions have summoned me here, Heimdall," Death's velvet voice replied as parts of his skull-face— part-beast and part-humanoid— gleamed with the colours of the reflected Bifröst. "An attack against my Get is grounds for war."

Heimdall swallowed hard. "I can assure you, my Lord, that no one that I know of has spoken of any actions against you."

Death's skull-face gleamed, his jaws parting to expose jagged teeth. "I do not take kindly to my daughter being called a  _whore_."

Heimdall paled, even more than he had previous. "I will take you to All-Father."

Death's face shimmered with the shifting light of the Bifröst. "After you."

Heimdall led the way, a look of consternation on his face.

* * *

"I assure you, Lord Death," Odin said, visibly discomfited. "At no point did we intend insult to you or any of your Get." All-Father seemed slightly disturbed by the the term Get over family, perhaps thinking that made it sound less civilised. Yet, who was he to challenge Death on the terms he gave his family—

"She does belong here in Åsgard and is certainly not a goat at the banquet table," Death quoted, his eye flames flickering crimson.

Odin flinched. "That comment was not made to  _your_ daughter, Lord Death."

"No, but it was thrown to all those of Miðgarðr, wasn't it, All-Father?" Death's speech slipped into ancient Norse, slid into modern speech, and then into Åsgardian so smoothly that it hard to determine what he had started with and what he ended with. "In that moment, you cared not of who Jane Foster was, only that she was unfit— unworthy of your son and your family. In so doing, you insulted all those born of Miðgarðr— where my beloved daughter happens to make her home."

"Your daughter is Midgardian in origin?"

Death's face seemed to deepen with shadow. "Do you find it so hard to believe that Death would find those worthy to be called kin amongst the denizens of Miðgarðr? Do you think the very Realm that brought humility and temperament to your sons is now, having served your purpose, somehow become lesser in your regard?"

Odin's hand clenched as he bit back his normal response.

"Perhaps, you think one of the other Realms more deserving, other universes, other planets—  _any_ planets— but Miðgarðr, hrm?" Death waved his hand. "It is neither here nor there, All-Father. What matters is that my daughter is preparing to welcome my grandson without a father because the father believes her to be a  _whore_. Somehow, someway, he seemed to take it into his head that she was in Åsgard— spreading her legs to your court. Tell me then, where does the ball lie? I know well that she was never here."

Death's aura shifted darkly. "How then would her then-suitor think she was? How then would he have no support from his family that he must go and bring many more to my fold by destroying scores of innocent bridges in a number of highly populated areas?"

"Neither of my sons were courting—"

Frigga silenced Odin with a look.

Odin's one eye widened. "It can't be.  _ **Loki**_  was infatuated with a mortal?"

"Technically," Death allowed, casually dipping his hand into the Pira pool and watching the fish poke at his skeletal fingers with confusion. "He was infatuated with an immortal sorceress, as ageless as I."

Odin and Frigga exchanged worried glances with each other, neither wishing to bring war to Åsgard— especially against one such as Death, who reigned as the great equaliser in every war.

Frigga, concerned, stood. "Please, Lord Death. Who is the one Loki that saw here at Åsgard?"

"It may not even be Loki!" Odin said.

"You think our other son would have a wandering gaze? Where do you think our Loki has been since he has not been here or anywhere else causing chaos and destruction up until recently?"

Frigga's frustration materialised as an entire school of confused Pira, who dropped from the sky into the pond. The pond was a flood of grey and red fish, all flopping frantically around with nowhere else to go.

Death eyed the toothy fish and gestured idly with his hand, causing the fountain to expand into a sizable pond. The fish settled, at once, instantly looking more pretty and less carnivorous.

Death waved his skeletal hand again, and a cloud solidified into a crystal clear vision of a pregnant young woman. A man dressed in sorcerer's regalia was helping expand the home she was living in. A young wizard with a mop of black hair was waving a wand, moving the fences over and making a number of feeding troughs. A young blonde witch flitted about throwing around a basket of seeds, and the moment they landed they grew into a lush carpet of colourful wildflowers and grass.

The pregnant woman laughed as Jörmungandr gifted her with a huge tuna, and the Suneater Fenrir and the hellhound Garmr worked in tandem, helping to drag the fish further up the beach.

"Thank you, Jörmungandr," the woman laughed, reaching her hands up to take the serpent's nose in her arms and place her head against his nostrils. His tongue flicked gently, poking her in the side.

She cast a magic circle, and the tuna rose up off the ground. A black-haired wizard used his wand to slice it from nose to tail and release the guts, as the woman used a gesture to send the scales flying in random directions. Garmr frolicked in the impromptu scale shower, snapping at them with her tail wagging vigorously.

The sorcerer set up a spit and bound the fish to it after stuffing it with lemon and fresh-picked herbs, then set up a spell to turn the spit automatically. Garmr belched fire into the wood under the fish, and it immediately came to life, cooking and smoking the great tuna.

The blond-haired witch brought over a giant basket of greens. "I've got the salad, Hermione!" she said. "I even convinced the hiccuping tomato patch to give you some pearl tomatoes!"

"Thanks, Luna," Hermione said, laughing. "Sid, kindly put that Auroch down. We all have to wait for dinner."

The wolf whinged and spat out the irritated Auroch. The ox tried to kick the wolf in the head, but the wolf dodged, tongue lolling, utterly unimpressed.

"You guys don't have to wait over me," Hermione protested. "I can do this by myself."

"Rubbish," the black-haired wizard scoffed. "Hermione, you've been doing so much for everyone for gods only know how long. It's about time we did things for you, even if we do have to build our own guest rooms to stay in until the baby comes. Even then, with more of us around, we can all help take care of the wee one with you. Your sorry git— sorry, Hermione, but he broke your heart, left you pregnant, called you a whore and took off— didn't have the decency or respect to stay with you, well if that's what a god does, then he can go somewhere else for prayers."

"Not sure he's a prayer kind god, Harry," Hermione sighed, rubbing her head.

"Why couldn't you have attracted the God of Knowledge or someone more— I dunno— bookish?"

"Harry James Potter!"

Harry ducked behind a haystack, chuckling. "Sorry, sorry, can't help it!"

Luna peered up at the sorcerer. "Sorcerer Supreme, eh? Does that make you marvelous or matchless? If you are matchless, is that because you do things strangely or because no one can do the things you can do?"

"Erm…" the black haired man with a white streak in his hair said. "It's just a title."

"Oh, here I was thinking that maybe you were peerless in bed or something." Luna skipped away, carrying her basket of salad greens, leaving the Sorcerer Supreme looking quite flustered with a side of mighty baffled.

"Stephen," Hermione said with a laugh. "Could you help me with the warding spells? I'd do them myself but I believe you promised to beat me within inches of my  _un_ life if I tried to cast them while pregnant."

The Sorcerer Supreme laughed. "No problem." He performed an intricate hand gesture while incanting something long and complex in another language. The wards went up with a  _whoosh_ , making Fenrir's and Garmr's fur stand on end.

Hermione held up a large fish wrapped in fragrant herbs. "Here you go, Jörmungandr. Your favourite herb-crusted salmon with lemon." She threw it up in the air and used magic to propel it up and enlarge it at the same time.

" _ **Engorgio!"**_  she yelled, pointing her wand at it.

The salmon grew to the size of a semi-truck, and Jörmungandr snapped it up with a  _clack_ of his fangs, tongue flicking in sincere appreciation.

"You're welcome, love," Hermione laughed, giving him a fond pat on the snout.

Jörmungandr set his great head on the beach next to the expanded cottage, tongue flicking as he watched the goings-on with a relaxed air about him.

"Is Clea coming to dinner, Stephen?" Hermione asked.

"She's busy holding together the Dark Dimension with duct tape, chewing gum, and a prayer."

Hermione's eyebrow raised. "Somehow I imagined it to be rather more sophisticated than that."

"Spellotape and Drooble's best blowing gum?" he suggested.

"Must be," Hermione said with an easy shrug. "Well, I sent Wong a message. Maybe he'll show up, then."

"Wong  _never_ misses a chance for free food not cooked by me."

"Is this your way of saying you're on dish duty?"

"Apparently."

Hermione grinned. "Luna, is Xenophilius coming?"

"He said he'd come after he's done checking the traps for Crumple-Horned Snorkacks."

Hermione sighed. "That could be minutes, hours, or weeks."

Stephen shrugged. "Don't look at me, I'm just a sorcerer."

Hermione winced, touching her abdomen.

"Are you alright?" Strange quickly went to her side.

"I'm fine. They seem a bit excitable today." She pulled his hand to her abdomen.

" _ **Oh!"**_  Stephen exclaimed, his eyes going wide. "That was quite a kick!"

Hermione grinned. "A few. He or she's going to be a ninja or a kickboxer, I think."

Harry came up, smirking. "Quidditch All-Star for sure."

" _ **No!"**_ Hermione said. "I will take him or her out of the world if they even have a hint of Quidditch in them."

Harry pouted.

"You are no fun at  _all_ , Hermione."

"I am anti-fun; that's me."

There was a yell, and Hermione and Stephen ran around the cottage to find Harry buried up to his neck in sand and no one else about.

"Ant lion?" Hermione asked.

Stephen stroked his beard thoughtfully. "Sand wolf."

Hermione looked over to where Sid was lying on his back, feet up in the air as he rolled in the sand.

"Guess I better set the table," she laughed softly. "Minerva might be stopping in to pester me endlessly."

"She cares for you too," Strange said, chuckling.

"It's odd, I thought when he left— I'd be all alone." She looked sombre, resigned.

"Nope, not going to happen," Stephen said, putting his arm around her.

"A little help here," Harry whinged.

Hermione looked like she was about to help.

"Nope! No magic unless absolutely necessary or exceedingly minor in nature," Stephen protested. "You have magical people all around you to do it for you."

"But—"

Stephen gave her the eye.

"Yes, Master."

Stephen grinned at her, not bothering to correct her this time. He gave a whistle and Garmr came bounding up and dug Harry out— accidentally Pdigging him up and flinging him into another bank of sand.

Hermione winced. "Erm… good dog?" she said, albeit unconvincingly.

Garmr wagged her tail.

"Only you, Hermione. When most sorcerers and sorceresses gain familiars, they usually stop at one."

The aether serpents in her hair hissed to each other and then hissed at Stephen.

"I rest my case," he said with a laugh.

When they got to the table, a clutter of hyperactive, obnoxiously cute, fluffy spiders had it all set and decorated with fresh flowers and seashells.

" _We decorated!"_

" _We're the best!"_

" _Yup!"_

" _Job's done!"_

" _Polished the silver too!"_

" _We're so talented!"_

They scurried off the table and disappeared with a  _poof_.

Stephen just shook his head. "I give up. You are truly the Sorceress Supreme."

Hermione laughed. "Only for the realm of my father," she said with a warm smile. "I invited him to dinner, but he might be too occupied if Loki is still out there— bringing down bridges all over the place."

Hermione ignited the mosquito torches the Muggle way using matches and smiled as Harry looked at her like she'd grown a second head.

"How's the tuna coming?" Hermione asked.

Harry poked the fish with the end of his wand. "Almost done, thanks to hellfire."

"See? Hellfire is useful!" Hermione laughed.

Garmr whuffed, tail wagging.

Hermione touched the empty places on the table for Xenophilius, Minerva, her father, and Loki.

"You set a place for him often enough that the spiders do it too?" Stephen asked quietly.

Hermione made a face, wiping moisture from her eyes. "We were so happy— and I was such an  _idiot_ for thinking he actually loved me."

"Oh, Hermione," Stephen said. "There may still be a chance he was tricked into thinking you were less than faithful to him."

Hermione's expression hardened. "But he didn't  _ask_ , Stephen. He just took it, threw it in my face, and left. He didn't even care enough to ask me for my side of the story."

Stephen pulled her into an embrace. "Hey, stop that. No crying. No crying on the sorcerer's robes. Come on now." He rubbed her back. "We males are pretty dumb creatures, Hermione. We often don't see what is right in front of us even when we see so much around us, if we're lucky. When it comes to females, our brains go on holiday. Sometimes we fall so hard we just can't stop. We're on top of the world— and then something happens to make us doubt. Then we self-flagellate ourselves before we can see even reason. Then we're mad because we did. Then we're even more mad that we didn't think first. Then, we're too damn embarrassed to simply admit we were wrong in the first place."

Hermione sniffled. "Males aren't the only ones who lose all power of thought over a potential mate."

"You better not be talking about Ginny, Hermione!" Harry blurted.

"You at least fixed that problem!" Hermione retorted.

"Well, I liked  _that_ positive outcome," Luna said. "Harry is rather stunning full monty. I don't complain about the sex either."

"Biased," Hermione said, waving her hand.

" _ **LUNA!"**_  Harry yelped, his face flushing beet red.

Luna, nonplussed, dished out the green salad dressed with a glorious pomegranate vinaigrette

Hermione put out the feeding bowls for Fenrir and Garmr. One said "I once bit a sun and I liked it" and the other "Red Hot Mama". She pulled out a small bundle of meat and put one in each bowl then tapped the bowls with her wand.

" _Engorgio._ "

The bowls and the meat became equally huge, and the wolf and hellhound happily dug in, their tails wagging furiously.

"Still hungry, Jörmungandr?"

The serpent tongue flicked but shook his head no.

Hermione smiled, giving his scales a fond pat and sat down at the table.

Just as they were about to eat, Xenophilius stumbled in with a large caterpillar curled up on his head.

"Is that— smoking a  _hookah_?" Stephen whispered, boggling.

Hermione just waved at him not to ask.

"Have a seat, Xenophilius," Hermione invited. "You're just in time for dinner."

* * *

_**End of Chapter One** _

* * *

**A/N:**  Brrrr… it's cold outside. Jotunheim has come to visit. I'll be under my duvet, hibernating in-between classes.


	2. A Tangled Web

**Summary:**  [Loki/Hermione] Loki and Hermione were doing well until Loki saw something that made him think their relationship was less than he thought it was. Like a proper God of Mischief, he takes it out on everything around him. Meanwhile, others help Hermione piece her life back together— without that magic-flinging idiot god of Åsgard.

 **Beta Love:**  The Dragon and the Rose and Dutchgirl01 with Flyby Commander Shepard

 **A/N:**  Oh Loki… How would you like your crow.: barbecued, baked or fried? Just as a note. I tend to use characters and references to actual Norse mythology versus Marvel slaughter of it, so if you are wondering why certain references don't quite match up, that is probably why.

* * *

**The Emptiness**

**Chapter Two**

_O, what a tangled web we weave when first we practise to deceive!_

Walter Scott

"Father! You made it!" Hermione stood, somewhat awkwardly, and rushed to greet him.

The spectre solidified into a physical form, black cloak hanging around him in a tasteful set of robes. "Hello, my daughter," he purred as he took her into his arms. His skull-like face transformed into one of flesh and bone, ripples like water slid across the surface of the skull to form slightly more human features— slightly too sharp, too angular, the teeth too sharp to be entirely human.

None of these things fazed Hermione in the slightest, and she embraced him warmly.

Death admired her abdomen, his eyes shining.

Hermione drew his hand over her belly, smiling as the foetus kicked strongly.

"Ahh, a kicker," Death said, pride clear in his voice. "I look forward to meeting the next generation."

Hermione beamed. "Father, we just started dinner. Join us, please?"

"Of course. I wouldn't miss it."

Sid and Garmr looked at Death with puzzled expressions, their muzzles twisted in a strange combination of snarl and pant.

"Easy guys, you're not allowed to bite my father," Hermione said with a laugh.

The wolf and hellhound seemed to shrug and went back to panting.

She gave Jörmungandr a friendly caress, and the serpent tongue flicked, watching Death as he sat down at the table.

"Luna, Harry, this is my father. Stephen, I believe you're already acquainted—"

Strange fidgeted. "I last saw you  _female_."

"It happens," Death said with a smile.

Luna was unflappable, as usual, and she offered Death the salad bowl. "We have fresh Caesar dressing or pomegranate vinaigrette."

"Salad. How beautiful," he said, one finger poking one of the oddly shaped tomatoes. The tomato "woke up" and began to brawl with the other tomatoes, sending bits of Parmesan flying in all directions. "The tomatoes are quite fresh," he noted.

Luna smiled. "They're the best."

Harry gaped.

"Harry, you're catching flies," Hermione admonished.

Harry snapped his mouth closed.

"Father, this is Xenophilius and Wong."

Luna's father's eyes widened greatly. "Whoa. I knew it!" He bounced excitedly in his seat.

Wong, looking around him and seeing a hundred different things that were not exactly normal in any world, just shrugged. "Good evening, Death. I'd recommend the teriyaki sauce for the tuna. I made it myself."

Death's smile warmed the air. "Thank you."

Death looked at Wong quizzically. "You are a sorcerer."

Wong nodded.

"Do you plan on confronting me?"

"Not before dinner, sir."

Death laughed. "Good to know."

Hermione thrust a bowl of warm yeast rolls into Death's hands. "Everyone is here," she said, her gaze resting on the one empty setting: Loki's. Her jaw clenched. "Let us enjoy a nice dinner together."

* * *

The ground under the figure's feet withered and parched. Green, soft grasses turned to blackened thorns. Where water gathered, it turned to crimson taint as thick and sanguine as blood. The figure stared into the distance where huge wolf and hellhound were playing on the beach, chasing each other and tussling.

They bounced and played, vicious fangs bared as they battled, but it was all a farce. They lay in the warm sand, panting with tongues lolling merrily, seemingly carefree.

"How is this even  _possible_?" the figure's raspy voice asked. The figure ran perfectly feminine hands through her long, black hair, but as she pulled her hand away, half her face was twisted and malformed, skin pulling tightly over an almost-skull— withered and dessicated.

She clenched her hand into a fist. "Garmr," she snapped, sending out the thrum of her energy, commanding her hound to heel.

Her eyes widened as nothing happened. Not so much as a jerk of the head or the perking of ears.

She expanded her senses on the island— that had somehow been cloaked and carefully hidden from the eyes of both mortal and non. Had it not been for Angrboða's little hint to seek out her siblings—

How  _could_ they?!

How could they cow to a mere mortal wench? Their father had done nothing when All-Father had cast her off into the underworld as a young girl. He had done nothing when they had tried to bind Fenrir over and over again. He had done nothing when Odin chose to cast Jörmungandr into the Great Sea of Miðgarðr.

It was  _Loki_ that was guilty of betraying them all. It was  _Loki_ that left their mother Angrboða to return to Åsgard.

He did not  _deserve_ happiness.

He did not  _deserve_ forgiveness.

Who  _cared_ that he was forced to marry some Åsgardian woman against his will.

Who  _cared_ that his sons were pitted against each other as wolves and tore themselves to pieces?

Who  _cared_ that since Loki wasn't on board with the resurrection of Baldur that they cast him under Miðgarðr to be bound to the very rock with his son's entrails?

Who  _cared_ that they were still alive even when those charlatans that had come after were dead?

Who  _cared_ that Angrboða herself had cast Loki out of the cave not even allowing him to even see the birth of his children? Had he actually cared, he would have found a way to stay.

Loki had done none of them any favours.

So Hel had gleefully accepted her mother's help in a bid to frame Loki's newest paramour for acts of shame and disgrace. Loki would think her an unclean harlot, and that unworthy wench would be tainted with Loki's spawn, hopefully tearing itself free from her weak mortal womb as a rampaging, bloodthirsty beast.

Well— if the stupid beast couldn't do what it had been told, then  _she_ would just have to crush the mortal cow herself.

"You know the  _real_ reason you were cast from Åsgard?" Loki's voice was ice-cold and dripping with venom. "You always projected your thoughts so very loudly— and the ladies-in-waiting caught you having "fun" with All-Father's hounds. One of the poor creatures had been so traumatised that it laid open the side of your face. You— didn't even care. You kept right on carving that dog up, giggling. There was nothing I could do. Your own mother refused to take you. She said," Loki trailed off for a moment, giving a short, humourless laugh. "What's one less dog of Åsgard? So Odin cast you out— and since big sis had her little brothers wrapped around her fingers, they attacked in your honour."

"At first, no one blamed them, but as time went on little mistrusts became ever bigger ones, and soon none of the gods trusted  _them_ either. Not that Fenrir really needed a reason to distrust anyone after the binding experiments. As forJörmungandr—only the likes of my brother could look Jörmungandr in the eye."

Loki scowled, his long fingers running down his arm. "I used to curse All-Father for so many things, but I'm starting to see that, at least with some things, he had the right of it."

"Father- _ **HRK**_ —"

Loki's hand closed tightly around Hel's neck as a silvered dagger slid down into his opposite hand. "Oh, don't go all formal now. You and I both know the only name you ever called me was bastard."

Loki's horned helmet pinned Hel to the cliffside as his dagger slid up against Hel's throat. "I heard  _every_ thing you did. Every poisonous act that you plotted against me. You poisoned me against her— well played."

Hel's smile was cruel. "You'll never get her back, Father," she spat. "Mother was quite keen on making sure all of Åsgard knew what a little whore she was. You played your part so well— having no faith in anyone. You so easily believed what your eyes told you even when you have so skillfully used your own illusions to gain the upper hand against your adversaries. You tainted yourself. Rejected your pitiful, weak, human lover. You left her alone to raise your monstrous spawn in her womb. She will never forgive you because she will never know you were so weak. So foolish. So pitifully insecure."

Loki's face twisted in confusion. "Spawn?"

Hel laughed. "Oh, this is rich. You didn't even  _know_ that she's fat with your foul seed. I'll so enjoy telling mother about how you went to pieces over her bloody corpse. Since she's no warrior, that means she'll belong to  _me_. I will happily throw her to the dragon Níðhöggr, who will drink her blood even as he chews upon the corpses of Nástrǫnd, that I can make her into one of my dead army."

"She is not a murderer, adulteress, or oath-breaker," Loki snarled, his voice becoming low and dangerous.

"But  _you_ thought her one, didn't you, father?" Hel goaded, her lips curving into a cruel, mocking smile.

Loki stunned, left just enough of an opening for Hel to let her magic flare to rip into him, tearing through his body armour and into the flesh underneath. His skin cracked as it attempted to wither around him like that of a corpse.

"You are such a pathetic waste of space,  _father_ ," Hel spat. "Just as Åsgard didn't realise how Angrboða was there wearing a different body, you couldn't tell that your precious mortal lover wasn't really there. You were so pathetically insecure that you actually  _wanted_ to believe that yet another person betrayed you. You were too scared to accept that what you had was actually real. Oh, I've watched you. At least when you were rampaging across the Nine Realms you brought more dead to me in Helheim, but then even that small offering stopped. So, now I'm going take  _you_ , father. I will rain death upon the Realms to feed my armies for Ragnarök, for I  _ **am**_ death."

She pulled back, gathering her magic for a final, fatal strike. She linked her hands and a beam formed, radiating power and aimed directly at Loki's chest.

" _ **Die**_  for me, father."

The magic blew forward, hitting Loki full on the chest.

Hel let her magic and power pour into her angry blast, screaming her hatred and fury as she did so.

As the dust cleared, Hel was panting, but when she looked at the center of the massive crater she had created, Loki's corpse was not there.

Dr Strange stood in the center of the crater, the Eye of Agamotto flaring around his neck.

"You know, I was having a really great dinner. The least you could have done is waited until after dessert to serve up the magic cocktails."

Strange cracked his neck as a plume of the devoured magic escaped his mouth.

"You  _ **dare?**_ " Hel pulled back in fury, gathering a different sort of magic to her call. "I am your  _ **death!**_ "

She sent a blast of a different kind of magic as the very ground under her feet withered away and died. She pulled on life and transformed it into death, channelling it into a weapon.

" _ **RAAAAAGHH!"**_ she screamed, flinging her death magic towards Dr Strange.

As the cloud of debris cleared, Hel suddenly found herself facing an eerie figure shrouded in a wispy black cloak. A skull face that seemed a strange mixture of wolf and bear jutted from beneath the hood. Skeletal hands moved across its inhuman face, unnervingly slow as a long obsidian claws clacked across bone. "Hello, Hel. You've been a very naughty, naughty little pretender to  _my_ throne."

Hel's already pale countenance seemed even more so as she pulled back. "No— no! I am the goddess of death! The Underworld is  _ **MY**_ domain!"

"I admit that what you did to poor Helheim makes me rather less inclined to take it back as a fixer-upper. So full thorns and parched earth and dreary fog. You named your hall 'icy cold and sleet', your throne 'sotte bed'- you even named your bed 'sick bed' and the curtains 'misfortune.' You named your table 'Hunger' and the knife upon it 'Starvation'. I much prefer a good Turkish coffee or Scottish breakfast tea and a nice franzbrötchen or a cannoli, perhaps even a cremeschnitte . Oh, or even a lovely scretzebua'tiçan from Nashrodion XII— mmm, delicious. Did you know there is actually a place that serves Gagh? Who knew it was real and is actually quite delicious?"

Death pulled his skull off from his neck and passed it back and forth from his hands, yet the skull's jaws continued to move as if to talk. "You can have that little piece of depression, if that is what you truly want. You made it, after all, but you have insulted  _me_ via my Get, and you have stolen power from  _my_ Domain. You have sullied my beloved daughter's reputation with your shameless machinations. You have insulted my House. You have— insulted my sense of taste. You have even insulted the Old Norse by abandoning your supposed domain to wreck petty vengeance upon the world— at least your father has no domain in which to leave when he runs amok. Who tends Helheim when Hel leaves it? Where are your dead now that Garmr has found gentle hands willing to touch her body with kindness? Who calms the writhing dragon Níðhöggr with dead to consume when you are not there to feed him?"

Death's skull came to rest on one skeletal hand. "The truth is, you don't want Ragnarök. You want the power to rise as queen in a domain just as great and powerful as Åsgard, but you don't want the responsibility. You could have treated Garmr with kindness and earned her loyalty forever, but you gave her only pain and punishment if she should fail at a task. Now— your precious army flees into the Realms."

" _ **NO!**_   _ **I**_  am the ultimate power of Helheim! No soul can leave without  _ **my**_ blessing!"

"So sure of that, are you?" Death put his skull back on, shrugging.

"Daughter, would you please summon me a portal window," Death requested. "I seem to be quite busy sending countless dead souls on to the  _true_ afterlife."

"Of course, Father." Hermione appeared beside him and chanted as her slender fingers worked a complex series of runes in ancient languages that had long since been lost and buried.

_Open a window_

_Unto the Realms of Death,_

_Or what was trying to exist_

_Between Hel's breath._

_Open now to Helheim proper,_

_Where the dead now flee_

_Without her, the stopper._

_I call upon the true Domain of Death,_

_My Father's demand_

_I do give breath._

Hermione blew outward over her palm and particles swirled into a glowing portal exposing the empty halls of Helheim where not even one soul chose to remain behind.

" _ **You have no dominion over me!"**_ Hel screeched hatefully. " _ **I am the goddess of the Underworld! Your paltry illusions hold no sway over me! You have no command over me!"**_

The ground shook as the Bifröst materialised, and Odin, Frigga, Thor, and Angrboða—tightly restrained in manacles—stepped out of the circle.

"But  _ **I**_  do," Odin said grimly, pointedly aiming Gungnir at Hel's throat. "When I first cast you into the Underworld, I had hoped that you would prove yourself a just ruler for those that were allotted there had died of sickness or old age— the misunderstood in the Old Norse culture, who believed such people were lesser than warriors. I thought, then, that since you were also misunderstood, that you would make them a home fitting of their hidden honour, but instead you have proven me wrong. I did not wish to believe my grandchild capable of such horrific deeds, Åsgard or no, so I gave you a place where you could rekindle your honour and your name."

"I found your mother, Angrboða, sharing many a bed amongst the royal court. Imagine my surprise when I discovered she shared the same face as Death's daughter. Imagine my even bigger surprise when I learned that you and she were involved in preventing me from meeting the mother of my future grandchild."

"So you can cast it off into the seas or bind it with a chain until the coming of Ragnarök?" Hel spat viciously.

"Don't think we aren't aware of how you manipulated your brothers so much that your leaving drove them mad for a time," Frigga said coolly. "I am only glad that they have finally found trust again in someone far more suitable and deserving of their unselfish devotion."

"Why you—" Hel's eyes blazed with fury as she launched herself at Frigga, but Frig was hardly slow or incapable. She dodged just as Hermione's hand touched Hel's juncture of the neck and shoulder, and she squeezed.

Hel fell flat on her face.

Hermione looked down. "Wow, that really worked! Now I really wish my parents remembered who I was so I could thank them for making me watch Star Trek with them as a child."

Thor stared down at Hel, scowling. "I was so hoping to pound her face."

"I could always lend you Jörmungandr to wrestle with," Hermione said. "Or he might be able to wrangle up a Kraken for you to play with."

Jörmungandr rose from the water with a rush of waves, and Hermione patted his nose with fondness. The great serpent eyed his elder sister with a tongue flick and dropped a large piece of petrified, sea creature-encrusted tree on her.

Thor seemed to ponder the options with serious consideration, trying to ignore the fact that a giant serpent just dropped a tree on the goddess of the underworld.

Fenrir and Garmr bounded up and proceeded to relieve themselves on the petrified wood before continuing their rollicking game of chase down the beach.

"Ouch," Thor winced. "Sibling bonds denied."

A family of mini-quetzalcoatls appeared and promptly spat in the goddess' eyes before flying off to frolic in the gentle waves.

Thor lifted the petrified tree trunk and threw it down away from them. He stared at his hand and looked for somewhere to wipe it. He wiped his hand on one of the nearby mossy trees, and the young Whomping Willow sent him flying arse over teakettle into the ocean with a giant  _ **sploosh.**_

Jörmungandr looked down where his uncle had landed, tongue flicking in amusement.

Odin stood over Hel and sighed. "Hel, daughter of Loki, Goddess of the Underworld Helheim, I do cast you from godhood and condemn you to live in the realm you have created forever, never to leave its boundaries for all time, lest ye die."

"There you will tend the afterlifes of those souls allotted to you of the believers and ensure that Níðhöggr is fed the corpses of those guilty of murder, adultery, and oath-breaking. Only there will your powers remain to you. Should you leave it or attempt to send an agent out in your stead, your powers will wither and rot, and you will live and die within Helheim— the Realm of your own creation— as a mortal. Since Lord Death finds your realm to be offensive, I give He and His Get nine days and nine nights to transform it to something suitable for the dead before you are returned to it. This I command. This I decree."

"And  _you_ —" Odin said, turning to look at Angrboða. "I cast you off into the seas of Miðgarðr, where you may work your nets perpetually just as you attempted to do in Åsgard, cleansing the ocean of its trash. As long as his lady agrees, Jörmungandr will serve as your jailor, ensuring you do not leave in your task. Every nine days you will be given a day of rest where you will enjoy the sole company of your daughter in Helheim and be given succor in her hospitality. Your sentence will end when either the oceans are entirely free of trash or your life comes to an end."

Jörmungandr cocked his head, and Hermione gently stroked the top of his nostrils. The great world serpent shrugged, casting great streams of water off his body.

As the tension finally eased and relented, Frigga turned to Hermione. Her unspoken question was clear without words.

Hermione shyly drew her hand to her abdomen, and Frigga's face lit up with joy.

"I am Frigga, wife of Odin, and I am very glad to meet you, Hermione."

Hermione swallowed hard, perhaps unsure of exactly what to say to the mother of a number of gods, if not a goddess herself.

"Hello, I am very pleased to meet you as well."

"Where is Loki?" Odin asked, looking around.

"Oh, sorry, I'm afraid I forgot about that—" Strange gestured and a vortex of magic appeared and spat a very disoriented Loki out onto the beach.

"I've been falling for almost an hour!"

Hermione's jaw tightened. "Choose your next words  _very_ carefully, Loki Odinson," she said darkly, her eyes flashing like sunlight through a whisky glass.

Loki looked up at Hermione, his long black hair framing his face with errant curls. He started to say something and then abruptly stopped.

"I was an arse— and a fool—" he said contritely. "I am an idiot and a fool, but I am truly sorry, my love. I would give anything I could to hold you right now."

Hermione scowled. "Yes. You  _are_. You  _were_. And you gave up your rights for any kindness from me when you left after calling me a  _whore_."

Hermione's small fist swiftly connected with his jaw and spun him half-round. She turned away and then stormed up past the swath of dead and charred earth.

"And you can fix this shite your daughter left on my home."

Strange rubbed the space behind his ear idly. "She could have ported you to a hell-dimension to burn slowly over the course of a thousand years. She must still care for you."

Odin's eye was wide as he watched the petite woman storm away. "As fierce as a valkyrie."

"No, husband," Frigga said with clear appreciation. "She is as fierce as a  _mother_."

Loki held his head in his hands, pulling his knees close to his body as he knelt in the sand. "She knows what happened, but she still hates me."

"No, my son," Frigga said quietly. "What she truly hates is that you didn't trust  _her_. You of all people should know how that feels."

"How can I possibly fix this?" Loki whispered into his knees.

Death made his bones creak as he walked over. "Perhaps if you put as much effort into making it up to her as you did in destroying bridges, she  _might_ consider allowing you back into her life."

* * *

"What a dump," Harry said, looking around. He shivered a little as he conjured a strong warming charm around himself.

Luna looked around the icy, desolate hall. "Well,  _ **I**_ know how to make this place better fast." She opened a hamper, and countless fluffy spiders spronged out the hamper and set to work.

" _Wow, what a dump."_

" _Something lives here?"_

" _Depressing."_

" _Maybe they_ are  _depressed."_

" _Needs colour."_

" _Technically grey and white_ are  _colours."_

" _Needs better colour."_

" _Oh. Yeah you're right."_

" _First things first. Cleaning crew!"_

**Poof!**

A gigantic bowl of lemon-scented soap and water appeared and the spiders all dipped themselves into it, zooming across every surface.

Harry boggled at the sight "Wow, the tables are actually a beautiful mahogany under all that blech."

Hermione arched an eyebrow. "You just had to bring the spiders?"

Luna shrugged. "They seemed to look forward to the challenge."

"Father says he doesn't want to see the place until we're done." Hermione frowned. "I don't blame him. This place  _is_ pretty insulting."

"To be fair," Luna said. "The Old Norse believed anyone who didn't die heroically was deserving of this place."

"So if you die of pox or some other random disease, you're condemned to an afterlife of eternal depression and slavery?"

"No wonder they threw themselves into battle like idiots," Harry said. "Who'd want to risk this…"

Luna waved her wand, and row after row of beautiful, deep royal blue table runners covered every table in the hall.

"The Norse actually had quite a complex society. They even had rules for divorce and how to fairly allot accumulated property after doing so. It was pretty impressive, despite the battle hunger."

Harry shrugged, conjuring a number of fire pits filled with flames shaped like bluebells. The vibrant blue flames flickered peacefully as the hall itself soon warmed to a more comfortable, neutral temperature.

"I suppose," Harry conceded.

"You've gotten  _much_ better at conjuring flames, Harry," Hermione said approvingly, touching a flame with her fingers. The flames did not burn her, yet the heat from the flame-flowers was quite pleasant and soothing.

"Luna likes to use them to heat her greenhouses," Harry said.

"Inspired, then," Hermione mused.

Harry flushed.

A clutter of spiders zoomed by, polishing the floor into a startling burlwood hardwood.

"This place used to be beautiful," Hermione said, eyes flickering with soft fire. Her hand touched a tattered tapestry, and her magic restored it to newness: an epic scene of Ragnarök where Fenrir was devouring the sun, the armies of the dead met the living, Jörmungandr met Thor in battle in the seas. "Ragnarök. It was the vicious end times known by the Norse."

"Every culture seems to have some idea of doomsday," Harry said. "For a while, I believed it would be under the bare feet of Tom Riddle."

"There are a great many visions of the end of the world," Hermione said. "And only now do I see how varied they are. The Norse had a combined vision of what the end would be, regardless of path. No matter how one died, the end would bring them to the same end— the same Ragnarök. It is something that is quite admirable in many ways. Even the great religions that exist in the Muggle world argue over semantics."

"I wonder, sometimes, what would have happened if I'd had the courage to return Death's Hallows as you did— how I would see the world."

Hermione took in a deep breath, straightening her shoulders. "You wouldn't have, Harry."

Harry's head jerked up, hurt in his eyes.

Hermione shook her head. "It's not about bravery, Harry. It's that you already had so much on your shoulders from your birth. You did not choose that life for yourself. You deserve an uncomplicated life after all that."

"And you, Hermione? Do you deserve a complicated one?"

Hermione smiled. "My life has always been complicated, Harry."

"Yeah, well now it's more complicated than ever," Harry said with a frown.

Hermione chuckled. "No, Harry. It's actually a lot  _less_ complicated. At least as I can see a lot of things coming, now— even if not in my own shambles of a love life."

She touched her abdomen. With one hand she pulled on the Realm of Death and with the other she summoned her sorcery via the Principalities. Then she chanted a chain of nonsensical-seeming words as her eyes blazed like twin suns.

Cords of thick magic extended to Harry and Luna, and they grasped onto it, joining their own magic and will to hers. Luna added her vision of a massive feasting and mead hall with broad oak beams and grand woven tapestries featuring epic battles while Harry remembered his beloved Luna's treasured gardens, the silent beauty of the lake near their home and the many expeditions with her and his father-in-law, Xenophilius, exploring the great old-growth forests of the world.

A blast of combined energy, magic, and will blasted outward as it was chased by an arcane ring of sorcery. The ground trembled as healthy tree roots and vines burst up from the shriveled remains of the past. Halls and cottages appeared and sprawled into a vast, magnificent city that stretched as far as the eye could see, trees, flowering shrubs, and water forming glorious garden parks that filled in the spaces between each residence with healthy greenery.

Some of the areas grew underground to suit those whose comfort came from the touch of stone and soil. Some floated up into the clouds for those whose feet had never touched the ground of any realm that did not float. A great sea stretched off into the distance, along with boats, docks and a lovely beach along the sandy shore.

A vast desert went off in another direction even as the grasslands and great forests turned into deep valleys and tall, forbidding mountains. At the very center of the adjoining biomes, the great city of the dead arose, waiting for its tenants to cater to their afterlife until the coming of Ragnarök.

Even as everything sprang into place, the spirits of the dead drew in both animal and humanoid, giant and alien— the allotted of the third that did not go to Valhalla and Fólkvangr or the very sea-faring specific underwater abode of the great giantess Ran. No longer repelled by the dreary  _un_ life of the Realm, the spirits of the dead willingly chose to stay.

Hermione used her hands to shape an enormous skeleton out of clay until it towered over all of them. She grew weary, but she continued to work, making the details of bone and sutures across the skull and the grooves of the long bones. She placed her her hands on the skull and breathed over the clay bones.

The bones rattled as they formed into real bones and aether swirled into matter as they pulled together and a massive hound arose as flesh covered the frame, forming muscle and tendon. A dense coat of bright crimson fur erupted over the skin as a huge pair of leathery dragon-wings spread and fanned outward, membrane stretching between the bones.

The huge creature wagged its spiked reptilian tail and gave Hermione a long, wet slurp from between his elongated pointed teeth.

"Hello, love," Hermione said kindly. "I have a job for you. I need you to guard the path between the this Realm and those of the living, allowing none to pass between unless they are of my Father's Get or those visiting from the Åsgardian royal family. As a reward for your faith, I will give you the ability to be in two places at once that you may enjoy life with us above ground. Should anyone of Helheim treat you poorly or attempt to harm you, you are permitted defend yourself and summon assistance."

The creature wagged his great tail back and forth.

"I shall call you Torbjørn, which means "the brave and strong". Does this meet with your approval?"

Torbjørn panted happily, giving her an agreeable slurp.

Hermione lay her head against the great beast's muzzle, stroking his jaw with her fingers. She ran her palm into the creature's mouth, cutting herself on the sharp fangs. The unique cocktail of magic leaked from the wound, and Torbjørn licked at it gently. Magick thrummed between them.

"You shall always be able to find me wherever that may be, and I you."

Torbjørn whined and nuzzled her, his tail wagging wildly.

She leaned heavily on Torbjørn, slowly sliding down to the ground into a sitting position. Helheim was no longer disgusting to her Father, and there was only one more thing to be done.

"Harry, Luna?"

"Yeah, Hermione?" Harry said, rushing over. "Are you okay?"

"Could you do me a favour and finish up with Hel's living quarters. I seem to have used a great deal of energy today." She gaveTorbjørn a fond pat.

"Sure, Hermione," Harry said. "How often does a mere mortal bloke get to say he had a hand in renovating Helheim and Hel's personal throne and residence?"

Hermione smiled wickedly. "Once in a lifetime, I'd say."

* * *

Stephen forced Hermione to sit down and rest as he served her a hot cup of tea. "So, the spiders bred and had babies all over Hel's new residence?"

"Her very pastel rainbow-hued residence," Hermione said. "Don't look at me like that, Stephen.  _ **I**_  didn't do it. I was busy bonding with Torbjørn. And the fields of ever-blooming honking daffodils surrounding the place are all Luna's doing."

There were loud thumping noises coming from outside as Fenrir, Garmr, and Torbjørn's second-self romped around the island, playing and having a ball.

"On the bright side," Stephen said. "The hippogriffs are no longer stepping out of line since Fenrir joined you."

Hermione grinned. "Best wolf  _ever_."

Fenrir, who seemed to sense he was being praised, came bounding in through the door in pup form and jumped into her lap.

Hermione oofed and pet him around her growing belly. "Getting pretty crowded on my lap, Sid."

Fenrir wagged his tail, not caring in the slightest.

Hermione shook her head. "So, do I have you to thank for the expansive and improved gardens fit for royalty since my return?" Hermione pointed to the planter of beautiful tulip orchids in the middle of her table. "And the new wrought iron fencing?"

Stephen shook his head. "No, that was actually Loki's doing. He also put a pretty impressive charm around the fences to keep the hippogriffs from just flying over them and the aurochs kicking them away from the other side."

Hermione's eyebrows furrowed. Her hand drifted to her belly almost automatically, and she turned her head away in obvious conflict.

"I hate that I miss him so much."

"Do you really?" Stephen asked gently. He touched her hand, lightly squeezing it. "It's okay that you still care for him. He may have been a foolish, sadly mistaken, arrogant ass, but I've been there and made many of the same mistakes."

"You called Clea a whore?" Hermione asked, staring down at the table.

"Erm, no," Stephen said. "But I  _did_ call her a S'gortithi'kiv'tak'i."

Hermione's eyes widened in shock. "No way! You called someone that? Clea that?"

"I was so angry— so very jealous. She was having a great time with the younger sorcerers and I—" Stephen sighed. "I envied her. Her ability to just fit in."

"There aren't many words worse to call a female," Hermione said. "That one is pretty foul— I'm surprised she even talks to you now."

Stephen smiled. "I was such a righteous bastard about it, Hermione. I was so convinced by my emotions that my mouth ran off without censure. You know me. It's taken a  _lot_ of grey hair to find my flaws and face them. Being full of myself was one of the biggest."

"Harry said when he saw Professor Snape's memories in the Pensieve that his dad and his friends strung him up in a tree and called him all kinds of horrible things. Taunted him, threatening to take his pants off. And when his mum came up to defend him, Professor Snape called her a— Mudblood. She never forgave him. It took a really long time for Harry to come to terms that his father wasn't a hero and wasn't even a good person. About the only thing good in his life came after school. Professor Snape lived his life for the memory of Harry's mum— the one he knew before that day."

Hermione trailed off, rubbing her temples. "I told him everything. I gave him all of who I was, and he— he didn't even care enough to ask me about it before calling me a—"

Stephen frowned. "Have you perhaps thought that maybe he did ask you— or rather who he thought was you. What if she told him to his face everything he didn't want to hear. What if Angrboða knew exactly what would have him storming away to blow up something and then blow up at you? I'm not saying he wasn't a complete jerk to you, but maybe you should ask him if he did try. Now that you know that Angrboða and Hel were both in on it to make it real for him— it's not much of a stretch to think any harm it did to you would be equally enjoyable for them."

Hermione looked horrified. She clenched her fist as her aether serpents rose up from her hair and hissed in distress.

Strange rubbed the back of her hand with his thumb to reassure her. "Loki and I may not often see eye to eye, but he was utterly devoted to you, Hermione. Just as much as you were taken by him. You'd never have had a child together otherwise or you'd have castrated him on the spot. If the sheer amount of destruction he caused across the world was a any sort of clue, he was broken by the thought of you being anything but what he thought you were. Both of you fell into such a horrible trap. You did exactly what they wanted you to do, both of you thinking the other a monster, only they didn't know who you really were. They probably thought he'd have a fit of rage and kill you like any other mortal. Maybe he would have before you."

"They underestimated him and you, Hermione," Stephen said quietly. "Don't let them win. Choose your own path, but choose it for the right reasons, not because they outsmarted you."

Hermione squeezed his hand and stood, putting Sid down on the floor. "I'm going to go take a walk," she said, pulling her cloak around her shoulders. "Get some sleep, Stephen. And thanks— for helping me put things in perspective."

Strange waved a hand. "No problem." He smiled. "I have such a wide selection of stupid things I've done on my jagged path through life to make your problems seem blissfully simple by comparison."

Hermione snorted, conjuring a pillow to thump into his face. "Go to sleep, Master."

She chuckled as she exited into the night.

Strange expertly fluffed the pillow and carried it with him to bed.

* * *

"Thank you," Hermione said quietly, almost a whisper, "for the orchids. And the new fence— and the garden." She looked out into the sea where Jörmungandr lurked just under the waves. Before she'd never see him, but now he was everywhere she looked where there was ocean.

"You are welcome," Loki said equally quietly. "My sons tell me you have been very kind to them— and that they will gladly bite my arse if I hurt you again."

Hermione snorted softly. "I wouldn't recommend it. Gods only know where that's been."

Loki's eyebrows raised, and then he scoffed in laughter. "I'll have you know my arse is quite clean and free of mischief."

"Is there any part of you that is truly free of mischief considering you are the god of it?"

Loki frowned. "Well, it is clean, then."

Hermione stared into the ocean surf, silent. "When you called me that name, I— I was so angry, betrayed. It seemed so clear that you couldn't even be bothered to ask me my side of the story before you left."

"I had asked you—  _not_ you—" He blew out air between his teeth in a huff. "Angrboða when she looked like you." His eyes grew glassy, haunted. "She knew exactly what to say to send me off in a rage without even thinking it might be someone other than you. The very thought of you embracing someone else— running your hands across another's skin— accepting another's touch. I could smell the sex upon her."

"When you came up to me after I had seen that, I thought you'd truly played me, thinking me an utter fool. I believed you were going to come and gloat. I saw such happiness in your eyes, and believed you thought your game perfected."

He looked at Hermione, his eyes full of pain. "You were coming to tell me you were pregnant, weren't you? And I called you a whore."

Hermione closed her eyes. "I was so happy. I couldn't wait to tell you— and then all of what I thought I knew was gone. You were gone, and all I had was grief."

"You have no idea how sorry I am." Loki's face twisted in his pain. "A few times I stormed up this beach, wanting, demanding to know why you did what I thought you did. Each time I was beset by hippogryphs, mini quetzalcoatls, orange cats with roofing tiles, spiders with iron webbing—"

Hermione chuckled. "Crooks attacked you with roof tiles?"

"Yes, that insufferable furball chucked roof tiles at my  _head_ ," Loki confirmed.

Hermione stared down at the ground, trying to stifle her laughter.

Loki sighed. "Is there any respect for the gods  _any_ where on Miðgarðr?"

"To expect respect from cats is to court disappointment," Hermione said.

"And is there any hope between us?" Loki asked.

Hermione frowned, staring at her hands. "I Obliviated my own parents. There can be no forgiveness for what I've done. Perhaps there is no forgiveness for me for what I've done."

"How can you say that after all you have done? All you've helped to do?"

Hermione hugged herself with her arms, rubbing her shoulders with her hands. "It is penance."

Loki's eyes widened. "You think because you cast a memory spell on your parents that it should somehow condemn you to a life of solitude?"

Hermione was silent.

"Can you not reverse the effects?" Loki asked.

"I did."

"Then why—" Loki trailed off.

"My parents valued personal freedom and respect for others above all else. I took away their freedom, their memories, their choice and then I disrespected them by not even asking them first. I just— did what I wanted."

Loki's lips pursed into a fine line. "They were in grave danger."

"So I thought."

"You think just because they  _might_ have survived without your actions that it's okay to guilt yourself into believing what you did was somehow unforgivable?" Loki scowled. "And what would you think if something had happened to them? Then you would guilt yourself into thinking you should have done something. But you forget one thing."

Loki traced runes into the sand and then wiped them away with his foot. "I've had a lot of experience with avoidable and unavoidable regret. You forget that your parents are still very much alive. They still draw breath, and while they may not understand why you did the things you did, they are still alive today. Every single day they draw breath, they have you to thank for that priceless gift, and one day they may come to understand that. And even if they do not, is it not far better than them being tortured and slain by wizard who wished to remake the world in his own twisted image?"

Loki looked sombre. "I once thought that way, too. I was so convinced that Miðgarðr was made to be subjugated— that everyone up on its surface was an offence. Then, I met you, Hermione, and all that went straight off the edge of Åsgard. I realised that all the power in the cosmos meant nothing if I—"

"If I did not have you to share my life with."

Hermione jerked her head up, startled.

"Your defiance was refreshing," he said. "Your power was so strong even when you but barely used it. So much magic, yet you were content to live day by day without proving it to anyone."

"At first you infuriated me. I came by to prove to you how stupid you were, but then I came because my day did not seem complete without having seen you. Before I knew it, I was in love with you, and I did not care that you were from Miðgarðr or that you were mortal. I wanted you and only you. The very thought that someone else could come by and take you away made me terribly jealous, insecure."

Hermione chuckled. "You? Insecure? You come off as so very full of yourself."

Loki scrunched his face. "It's so easy to read others, sometimes. Not so easy to read myself."

Hermione's expression softened at last. "I kept hoping to see you, and you never came."

"I'm here now," Loki said. He gently opened his arms to her. "Please allow me to hold you again."

Hermione looked skyward, taking in the stars before looking into Loki's eyes. She slowly leaned into him, allowing his arms to pull her into him and hold her close. Her nostrils flared as she took in his scent that seemed to crackle with magic and cold at the same time.

Her shoulders quaked as her hands clasped his tunic.

"I've missed you so," she whispered into his hair.

Loki's eyes closed as he pressed his face into her curls. "In the spirit of full disclosure, I feel I must tell you I've been married twice."

Hermione pulled away, staring up at him.

Loki shook his head. "I got better." He conjured a delicate frost orchid between his fingers. "Third time's the charm?"

Hermione scoffed. "You call that a proposal?"

"I  _could_ give you an eight-legged horse as an offering, but I would have to steal him back from All-Father," Loki said, utterly deadpan.

"You'd give me the product of your evening pretending to be a mare as a marriage offering?" Hermione asked dubiously.

"Well, technically, I have to give the mundr to your family and sacrifice a goat to my brother, a sow to Freyja, and a boar to Freyr— and then exchange swords of our families— if we were doing it the Old Norse way," Loki said. "Though in Åsgard it involves less sacrifice of wild animals and more symbolic vows."

"As much as I wish to respect old ways and traditions, I would prefer to see less sacrifice of animals."

Loki's eyes sparkled as a smile chased the sun across his face. "So you  _would_ marry me?"

Hermione pressed her face into the warm skin of his neck. "I probably shouldn't," Hermione whispered, causing Loki to frown. "My ex is a real jealous bastard."

Loki froze in place. A snorting chuckle escaped his nose as he realised Hermione had royally played him, yet again. "I love you," he murmured into her hair.

The aether serpents rose up from her hair and chomped Loki on the face.

" _ **OW!"**_  Loki exclaimed, rubbing his abused nose.

"Aww," Hermione cooed. "They  _like_ you."

Loki scowled at the hissing serpents. "I believe we need to draw up some boundaries."

The aether serpents tongue-flicked at him.

"Those are new," Loki said warily.

"A lot has happened since we separated," Hermione admitted.

The serpents simultaneously  _ **ppphhhbbbtttt**_ ed Loki with nebula multi-coloured tongues.

"Is it a deal breaker?" Hermione asked, her expression utterly sorrowful.

Loki brushed the serpents to the side with one hand as he lowered his face to hers. "I will—" he said slowly. "Adapt." He pressed his lips to hers and pulled away slowly. "I fathered a giant serpent, after all."

"And an eight-legged horse."

Loki smiled wickedly. "More is better."

* * *

Ron scowled as he stared down at his tankard of lager and wondered where all the hot witches had gone. The money and fame should have lasted him a ruddy lifetime. When he first published the memoir, both had come his way in scads. He hadn't had to think about money since then.

Well, that is, until fairly recently.

Bloody mental witches.

He didn't have time to take care of their silly, stupid girly fancies. Sod what his mother wanted for him, Ronald Bilius Weasley was not about to be tied down to anyone or anything, not a job or a wife and especially not a handful of snotty-nosed brats. No  _way_. No strings attached meant no risk of any future obligations and that's just the way he liked it.

Most of his money had gone to hire himself a barrister to keep him in the clear, but what was left, he had to squirrel away to keep his insufferably needy family away from it.

"Ronniekins, the Burrow needs a new roof after your attempt at homemade lager blew up our attic and the family ghoul along with it."

"Hey Ron, we want to start a memorial DADA scholarship in Remus Lupin's memory. You'd want to support that, yeah?"

"Mr Weasley, in order to access your vault here at Gringotts there is the ongoing matter of your refusal to pay for your share of the damages after flying a full-grown dragon through our floor and ceilings."

Damn Hermione for getting all weepy and insisting on paying for the damages. How the hell did she get that kind of money? And Harry, the stupid sod, had paid his share of the damages too. Leaving the goblins only one party left to harass about lack of payment: Ron.

"It's not about the dragon, Ronald," Hermione had hissed. "I never condoned the use of painsticks on the Gringotts dragons. I'm paying to repair Gringotts because they lost people too. The goblins  _live_ in their workplaces. It's simply the right thing to do."

"They didn't give us all that huge a sum to pay, Ron," Harry had reasoned. "They knew what we did was to save everyone, but that doesn't help get properly trained people in to repair the damage we caused in the process. We pay up a little, show our support and respect for the goblins, and others may do the same. The goblins and the greater Wizarding world all benefit in the end."

"I don't have that kind of money!" Ron had blurted out. "Have you seen the burned wreck that's the Burrow now and— and my brother Fred is  _ **dead!**_  I have more than enough reminders of this bloody damned war!"

Well, the memoir had significantly changed the money situation, but Ron knew full well that the goblins had plenty of money. They didn't  _need_ any help, much less any of his hard-earned galleons. Psh.

He knew what he had to do to get the ruddy goblins off his case and let him get back to his life. Then he wouldn't have to put up with all the shite he was getting from Ginny with their rival Quidditch columns.

Ron plunked down a coin to pay for the drink, ignoring the glare the waitress gave him for leaving no tip.

" _Look, Harry, if you're ever in trouble, just take this coin and throw it into water and say,_ ''Vade,"  _Hermione had told Harry as she placed a charmed galleon into his hand. "I worry about you out there chasing Dark wizards and the scum of society."_

" _But Hermione, what if I'm not anywhere near water?"_

" _Are you a wizard or are you not, Harry?" Hermione scoffed. "Make some."_

" _Oh, right. Thanks, Hermione."_

Ron fingered the shiny galleon he had nicked from in Harry's robe pocket after last Sunday's family dinner and smiled. He'd recognised the distinctive thrum of Hermione's magic on it and realised what it most likely was.

Thankfully,  _before_ he'd spent it.

She always overdid everything.

Bloody overachieving little swot.

Ron grabbed the coin and clutched it tightly. He Disapparated back to his tiny crash pad above a Knockturn Alley pub.

He scowled. He had to sell everything he had from the old place, but he couldn't stay at Dean's or Seamus' anymore.

" _You said you only needed a place to crash for a few weeks until you found your new place, not that you were going have wild parties and bring slags back 'ere every night! I have to go to work every morning and I can't sleep at night with your banging your flavour of the evening until the bloody wee hours, so get OUT, mate, NOW!" Seamus had screamed at him, chucking a mug at his head as Ron hurriedly Apparated out of the cranky Irishman's line of fire._

Seamus just hadn't understood, had put his partying days long behind him and had turned into a bloody boring excuse for a red-blooded wizard. What a sodding wanker, and, by the way, that was  _no_ way to treat a bonafide war hero.

And he was a famous author to boot!

Ron threw the coin down on the table as he grabbed another bottle of second-rate firewhisky from the cupboard. He poured an extra-healthy measure into his whisky glass a little  _too_ overzealously, spilling good whisky over everything.

" _ **Shite!"**_  he cursed, attempting to blot the whisky up before deciding it wasn't worth the effort. He downed the glass in one go and poured another, again sloshing whisky everywhere.

He downed the whisky again, cursing as he grabbed the now-slippery coin. " _Portus!"_

The Portkey seemed to shudder for a long moment, then just when Ron was about to fling it away in disgust, it suddenly activated.

_**FFFFFFFLLLLIRRRIP!** _

Ron's head spun and his stomach lurched obscenely as the odd Portkey whirled him away to its predetermined target.

* * *

Jörmungandr yawned hugely, showing all of his fangs, and then he sneezed, causing about a hundred or so coconuts to clack together on the nearby trees.

"Bless you," Hermione said as she caught a few of the errant drupes on their way down. "Did you know that coconuts are called drupes?"

Harry's eyebrows rose together. "Aren't they like a fruit or something?"

"I suppose fruits or seeds, but plums, cherries, almonds, coconuts, they are all drupes."

Harry chuckled. "Hermione, you're far too into strange and unusual factoids."

Hermione smiled. "They say the child outshines the parents. What would that make my future child?"

Harry frowned. "A nightmare too all their peers."

"Harry Potter!" Hermione yelled, chucking a coconut at his head.

Harry laughed, dodging.

Luna pointed her wand at the rolling green coconuts, and they all zoomed into a neat pyramid in the middle of the collection tarp. "How many do we need for the next order, Hermione?"

"A few dozen for the oil and for the lotions and soaps, but then a few for our barbequed fish tonight."

"We're having fish for dinner?" Harry asked.

Jörmungandr rose up from the ocean and dropped several enormous swordfish on the beach, directly at Hermione's feet.

"Aren't those a supposedly  _extinct_ species of swordfish—" Harry blurted, his green eyes very wide.

Hermione just shrugged. "Tell that to Jörmungandr. He keeps finding them somehow."

"In his personal time machine?!" Harry protested.

Fenrir bounded up and dropped the carcass of an Irish Elk at Harry's feet, tail wagging.

Harry sighed. "Of course. I mean, why do I even question anything anymore?"

Fenrir and Garmr exchanged amused canine glances, their tails wagging in synchronisation.

"At least Sid stopped eating the hippogriffs."

"He  _ **ate**_ the hippogriffs?"

"First day," Hermione answered with an understanding smile. "Peak of breeding season."

"Rough. They don't even care if you bow during breeding season," Harry said. "Buckbeak used to beat up Hagrid's knees every time— not that he ever seemed to notice."

"Probably made the ruling male's year," Hermione said.

"Why not let them tussel?" Thor asked, leaning on one of the coconut trees only to have it tilt crazily to the side. Thor hurriedly tilted it back up and stomped on the ground to pat the earth down firmly around to hold it in place.

Torbjørn suddenly appeared out of nowhere, an enormous barrel clutched in his jaws, which he gently set before a curious Thor. He peered down at the label, looking quite confused, so Hermione stepped over to have a look.

"Merlin, Torbjørn, where on earth did you get that?" Hermione boggled.

"What is it?" Harry asked, curious himself now.

Thor had a nigh-maniacal expression on his face. "Mead," he said, his nose to the wood. " _Really_  good mead."

Torbjørn panted, foaming a little, his tail proudly whooshing back and forth.

Loki appeared, tapping a coconut with his finger, turning it various colours as he used his magic to take off the top. He deftly inserted a straw and blissfully sipped the milk within.

"Hel won't be getting drunk tonight," he said, grinning from ear-to-ear.

Thor looked at his brother in awe. " _ **This**_  is the infamous Hel-mead?"

"Quite possibly," Loki agreed cheerfully.

"Now we  _ **must**_ have dinner as soon as possible," Thor bellowed. "I should invite my Jane here to enjoy this!"

"I have the feeling that drinking the alcohol of the underworld could cause a bad chain of events," Harry said, looking a bit worried.

"Oh, I don't know," Luna said cheerily. "Mix it with the coconut wine I made, and we could go on a very interesting vision quest together!"

Harry gave Luna a  _look_. "Erm."

"I'm going to go get Jane," Thor announced, bellowing for Heimdall just before the Bifröst carried him away along with the poor, innocent coconut palm and a good portion of the land it had been occupying.

The sand rushed in to the divit.

Hermione frowned at the new scar upon her formerly pristine island. She gazed upward as if to look Heimdall in the eye, scowling.

The Bifröst activated again and a palm tree reappeared, upside down, in the spot newly filled with sand.

The tip of Hermione's tongue ran across one of her canines, flicking across the pointed almost-fang.

" _Rut-roh,"_ a nearby clutter of spiders cried, scurrying around the scene in frantic circles. They silked up the roots and attached it to Garmr and Fenrir. The wolf and hellhound walked in different directions to prop the tree upright again— slightly crooked.

Garmr itched her ear, and the vibration made all the coconuts on the tree fall.

Luna pointed her wand at the ground and cast a charm, and the earth swallowed the bottom of the tree again— albeit still crooked, resembling the leaning tower of Pisa.

The spiders rubbed their abdomens together.

" _Oops."_

They snapped the silk lines and looked guilty.

Luna gathered up the coconuts and levitated the pile back to the cottage, whistling a merry tune as she did.

Hermione couldn't help but laugh out loud.

"Oh,  _Luna_."

Hermione aimed her wand at the swordfish as Harry took on the giant Irish elk. They moved the floating fish and elk back towards the cottage.

* * *

When Hermione reached the cottage, she stared as her jaw attempted to measure the length from her head to the ground all by itself.

" _Whaa?_ "

Dr Strange stood up on the dais that had appeared in her garden. He looked up from talking to Frigga. Frigga turned, a radiant smile on her face.

The cottage was bustling with activity as the Asgardians bustled about. The royal chefs were throwing around heaps of exotic ingredients as others were busy cooking up a veritable feast. Clutters of busy spiders were tending the tables, some creating the most exquisite flower arrangements and others were handcrafting beautiful silk linens.

"What  _is_ all this?" Hermione whispered.

"Your wedding, of course," Odin said as he leaned on his spear. He drew one finger across his eyepatch.

"I— but— I—" Hermione stammered.

Stephen waved his hand, chanting, and Hermione was dressed in an ivory gown with delicate, flowing frost-like lace moving up her chest and down her shoulders. The silken fabric flowed down from her waist in cascading ripples. A soft, thin and gossamer outer layer adorned the under silk from the chest down, giving her an almost spectral appearance. The sleeves draped long and almost to the ground making her look like she could take flight at any moment.

Hermione looked down at herself, her hands tentatively touching the silken dress with wonder.

" _So pretty!"_  the nearby spiders said, bouncing up and down. " _Horray!"_

Hermione startled as she saw Loki on the dias. He was dressed in what appeared to be a fusion of armour and a tuxedo in what Hermione had called "Åsgardian flair and practicality."

" _Does everything you wear have to be combat ready?" she'd asked one day._

" _My mum can fight in flowing dresses with long sleeves and and a train," Loki had said with chuckle._

" _You probably wear armour to bed," she'd retorted, causing Loki to smile wickedly._

" _Would you like to find out?" he had purred._

" _What?! NO!" she'd replied, having chosen a plum flush for her face as she shoved him away from her._

Hermione shook her head at the memory. Proprietary had lasted all of year, with him lathering on the innuendo half of that time, the other half being them trying to decide if they hated each other enough to destroy each other with magic or physical combat.

It had been an interesting dance, Hermione realised. Their first act of physical intimacy had led to pregnancy and— well, drama.

Stephen, of course, had said that it was a great way to keep her on her toes with her practice of sorcery. Maybe, she thought, he was right. She'd been practicing the art of countering a  _god_  afterall.

Stephen cheated, all things said. He could absorb magic when he had to.

* * *

" _You cheat too," Stephen had countered her. "You defy death."_

" _I do not defy, I obey," she'd huffed, crossing her arms across her chest in a disturbingly familiar gesture._

" _Says the woman who goes and gets herself adopted by Death himself."_

" _Someone had to adopt her considering that none of you lot were going to do it," Death's voice rumbled as he materialised._

" _Father!" Hermione leapt into his arms in a tackle._

_Death, who was wearing a strange, kindly human countenance and a flawlessly tailored tuxedo, smiled and hugged her._

" _Hello, my daughter," he said with a purr. "I am happy to see you haven't cast him out into some faraway burning dimension and tethered him to a rock to suffer endlessly until Ragnarök."_

_Hermione paled. "Who_ _**does** _ _that?"_

" _The Old Norse had a great many rather creative ideas for dealing with oath-breakers, adulterers, murderers, and the like," Death said serenely. "It accentuated their values."_

_Hermione looked to Loki. "How did he part from his previous wives?"_

_Odin fidgeted uncomfortably. "Lady Sigyn was not happy in the arranged marriage, but felt forced to accept the situation due to her status as the goddess of fidelity. However, she found a loophole of sorts when Loki was forced to dress as a female to save a goddess from an unwelcome fate. She divorced him on the grounds that he was a crossdresser, a legitimate reason for divorce."_

_Hermione blinked. "She divorced him because he changed himself into a mare and gave birth to a foal?" She paused. "I can't believe I'm just sitting here calmly discussing such a thing."_

" _And— Angrboða?"_

" _They were never married," Odin said. "Their relationship was— defiance. Angrboda to all of her people, and Loki to any and everyone."_

_Hermione's brows knit together. "I will admit that Norse Mythology has baffled me somewhat, but at least you weren't turning yourself into various animals to woo young maidens outside the gaze of your wife."_

" _I know where my husband sleeps," Frigga said, eyebrows wiggling mischievously._

_Odin gave his wife a wary look, and Frigga smiled beatifically at him._

" _We have a wedding gift for you, Lady Hermione," Frigga said, her eyes and tone warming. "We've been doing a little— how do Midgardians put it?— legwork? Since you have been so busy with a hundred other things."_

" _Wedding?" Hermione gasped. "But we haven't even set a date yet!" she protested._

_Frigga shook her head, lifting one finger to hush her. "It's important."_

_Hermione went silent. "Okay?"_

_Frigga gestured to the front door of the cottage. "Your gift is waiting inside."_

_Hermione cocked her head to the side and then walked into the cottage—_

* * *

Hermione stared at the family side of the bridal party and swallowed hard. Edward and Jane Granger sat in the front row, Edward in his tuxedo and Jane in her rose-coloured formal dress. Her hand tightened around Death's, her stress at her parents having returned into her life bringing with it a mix of emotions she wasn't sure she was ready for.

Fortunately, her parents seemed grateful enough that they'd made the wedding, even if Death was walking her down the aisle instead of Edward Granger.

The truth was, she was very grateful to Lady Frigga and Death for having "quietly taken the Drs Granger to the side" and "shown them what their fate would have been had their daughter not intervened when she did."

They couldn't, she knew, take her word for it.

They  _did_ , however, seem to take Death and an Åsgardian goddess' word for it after they gave them the equivalent of a day trip into the very narrowly avoided past and possible future.

While Lady Frigga had been a little more subtle in her approach, Death had not. He showed them in quite graphic detail the agonies, torture, and loss they would have experienced had the Death Eaters gotten ahold of them—

Had they been there for the taking in their London home and  _not_ safely out of reach in Australia at the time.

Hermione's wedding gift had been the return of her parents for the second time, only they wished to be a part of her life again. It was so surreal.

At no point did she ever regret her binding to the Realm of Death. She did not regret becoming a sorceress. Sometimes she wondered if some of her old Wizarding friends regretted having been tied to her by infamy, but Harry actually seemed relieved that someone other than him had to deal with such things.

As for Luna, she was, well— Luna.

Minerva was like the indulgent aunt she'd never had growing up.

Hermione had to smile. Things weren't as bad as she once imagined. Her time working at the Ministry had been a hundred and one reason why she and politics were  _never_ going to get along. They had unwittingly done her a huge favour because it had caused her to storm off to Timbuktu where an interdimensional portal had opened up, spat out a humongous foam demon and caused her to take out all her frustrations upon the unfortunate creature. Stephen had arrived just in time to see her drying up the foam demon with fiendfyre, forcing it to retreat back into the portal as it called her quite a number of unflattering names.

* * *

" _So, you're a sorceress."_

" _No, I'm a witch, and I have a name. Hermione."_

_The dark-haired man frowned, using his entire face. A poker face he hadn't. "I'm Doctor Strange."_

" _Mmhmm." Hermione gave him the standard polite, noncommittal smile and nod. "What are you a doctor of?"_

" _Neuroscience."_

_Hermione arched one skeptical brow. "Uh-huh."_

_Strange's cloak seemed to be wrestling with his face, giving him a few smacks._ " _ **Staaahp!"**_   _he demanded._

_The cloak floated over to Hermione and gave her a bow and a hug, swirling around her flirtatiously._

" _Um, hullo there," Hermione greeted._

_The cloak shuffled in mid-air, looking like a shy person looking down at their crossed legs in social awkwardness._

_Hermione touched the cloak with a soft stroke, and the cloak spun and did a loop-de-loop in delight._

_Strange tugged the cloak back, fastening it around his neck again. "Seeing as you just dealt with a Class V foam demon, I think I would like to offer you an apprenticeship."_

" _As a neurologist?"_

" _As a sorcerer— er, ess."_

_Hermione stared at him._

_Strange tugged at his collar, and the cloak whapped his hands with the collar. "Look, it takes a special kind of person to even see a fog demon and even more special person to box its ears and send it back through from where it came from. That kind of talent is rare enough. With training, you could be a sorcerer and help protect Earth from all manner of preternatural, supernatural, mystical, and demonic threats."_

" _I'd have to change my gender?" Hermione asked dubiously._

_Strange furrowed his brows and then realised what he'd done again. "Sorceress. To be fair you could change yourself to be whatever appearance you preferred, but that comes later."_

_Hermione tilted her neck to realign her spine. "You want me to train to be sorceress and battle the supernatural and mystically dysfunctional in order to protect earth?"_

" _Erm, well, yes," Dr Strange answered. "I know it sounds a little out there—"_

" _Where were you five years ago when Tom Riddle was trying to take over the world and subjugate anyone and everyone on a mad quest for power?"_

_Dr Strange sighed. "A neurosurgeon at Metro General Hospital, wallowing in rather over inflated ego."_

" _You gave up neuroscience for the mystical arts?"_

_Strange looked at his hands, opening and closing them. "I had the talent but didn't know it. It took a few years of being without my hands to see beyond myself and focus outside of what I thought was most important."_

_Hermione was silent, choosing to look out over the moors in thought. "Is this another magical world that no one knows about and has to be kept secret from everyone?"_

_Stephen frowned. "Most are protected from seeing such things, if we can. Unfortunately, there have been too many instances recently to make the world oblivious to us, but most people dismiss me as being some sort of side-show magician with a great light show. Truthfully, however, better that most do not know what is out there ready to devour their souls, brains, spleens, or otherwise. They can know sorcerers exist and make up what they want for what that means. That doesn't mean we're telling them exactly what we do or even showing them."_

_Hermione eyed him. "That makes sense,yes."_

" _So, would you join us? Become an apprentice and learn to become a sorcerer— ess."_

" _There must not be that many females in your organisation."_

_Strange shrugged. "I fear many of them were absent during my initiation due to having fallen in battle with others. There were many senseless deaths. The Ancient one was a powerful woman, but it was hard to see her as a woman as much as a force of magic. To be honest, I'm not sure why I have such a problem with the term sorceress. Rumour had it she was so old that she spend half her life as a male and half as female just to even out the energy."_

_Hermione fell silent, staring. "I really don't have anywhere to go right now. My job at the Ministry is going nowhere. Nothing ever changes."_

" _I cannot promise you fame. You might even be infamous— but you will save people, Hermione."_

_Hermione smiled. "Seems to be a trend in my life." She took his hand. "I'll do it, Mr Strange."_

" _Doctor."_

_Hermione arched a brow._

" _It's Doctor Strange."_

" _Do you really stand so firmly upon titles?"_

" _I worked very hard for mine."_

" _I worked very hard for mine, but you don't see me demanding you call me by it?"_

_Strange frowned. "What title?"_

" _Master of Arithmancy, Transfiguration, and Charms Hermione Granger," she replied. "Um— and healing once my certificates come from sitting the healer's exams. We have no doctors, you see, in the magical world. Healers are all of the same cloth. They all view the patient holistically from head to toe to their life."_

_An owl hooted as buzzed over, and dropped a large scroll on top of Strange's head. It bounced off his head with a clunk and landed in Hermione's hands._

_She opened the scroll's wax seal and unrolled the parchment. A secondary parchment leapt out and proclaimed in a cheery voice, "Greetings Master Granger, or should I say Master-Healer? Congratulations on surpassing our expectations on your healing mastery and completing your apprenticeship with Master Greenbury— and all while working at the Ministry at the same time! We look forward to speaking to you about a potential career with us in St Mungo's spell damage ward. Have a wonderful day!_

_The parchment transformed into a golden pin that attached to her collar._

_Doctor Strange stared at her._

" _Master Healer too," Hermione said with an amused expression._

" _Healer?" Stephen repeated, dubious._

" _Oh, I know we don't have neurosurgeons in our little piece of the world," Hermione said with a smile, "but we do well enough."_

" _What could a healer do that all the wonder of science hasn't already tried and succeeded?"_

" _Oh, I don't know," Hermione replied. She held out her hand. "Healers are different in the Wizarding world, Dr Strange. They cater to a specific kind of person whose magic flows through the currents of the body since early in their life, starting in childhood and then growing more open as they age, peaking in adulthood, stressors forcing open the pathways prematurely notwithstanding, around the age of thirty or forty. Most, however, rarely progress after their twenties, having had plenty of stress in growing up to open them as far as they will go."_

_Strange tentatively placed his hand in hers._

_She ran her hand over his, a glow coming from her wand, which she had pulled out in such a smooth moment that Strange hadn't even seen her do it._

" _Those with magic running through them have different physiology— subtle, mutated, if you will to house the magic they are apart of. We have to make our own potions, medicines, and tonics because the Muggle world doesn't know how to treat even the basics in those that look human— arguably are human— but are built just a little differently."_

_Hermione ran her hand down Strange's hand, her fingers tracing down his nerve lines. "Muggle science says that this is the Ulnar nerve," she said tracing the area below his pinky and fourth finger. "This, the median," she continued tracing down from the first finger and down toward the wrist. "And this the superficial branch of the radial nerve." She ran her fingers gently over his thumb and down. You know this as a doctor of neuroscience. You probably think nothing of it. It is normal."_

_Hermione's wand glowed. "But what Muggle doctors don't know is that when someone comes into their magic, their physiology shifts. This normally happens as a child, so there are no— adaptations to previous expectations inside the body. But— should a person come into their magic as an adult, their body already having formed pathways and remodelled others— and damage or trauma taken in that delicate time leaves the body confused. The cells remember one thing, but the body is changing too fast to adapt. The cells are stuck somewhere between prophase and metaphase, unsure how to divide because chromosomes are changing even as the body is changing. This, to Muggles, is often seen as a manifestation of pain or wounds that don't quite heal— nerve damage, perhaps._

_Hermione ran her wand over his hand and the tip glowed brilliantly._

_Stephen gasped as his hand grew warm as if dipped in warm butter._

" _But to those of us who know such injuries— it is a simple matter of encouraging the cell to finish its halted evolution to where it was trying to go when it was injured."_

_She dropped his hand._

_Stephen stared at it, opening and closing it. The minor tremor that had plagued him since his car accident was gone._

" _You came into your magic by trauma, didn't you?" Hermione said, her expression sorrowful._

_Stephen nodded, still staring at his hand. His other, which she had not treated, still trembled._

" _I may not be a doctor of neuroscience, Dr Strange," Hermione said, "but I am not an idiot or a fool nor am I a mere layman. I know magic, but I am willing to learn this— sorcery for I can accept that there are some things I do not know— yet."_

_Doctor Strange's face flitted through a few puzzling expressions before settling on "eat crow." He held out his hand again. "Stephen."_

" _Hermione."_

* * *

There was a time, Hermione realised, when she wondered what most  _other_ girls wondered while growing up. Would she marry? Who? What it would be like? Would she have kids? What would her parents think?

Her love life had been one delusion after another. She'd once thought Ron was attractive— to the point of being jealous of Lavender Brown and even refusing Viktor Krum's courtship overtures until he got tired of waiting for her, finally taking her suggestion to find someone with fewer entanglements.

She'd also had a completely irrational crush on her old potions professor—

Gods, she was glad he'd never been alive to know about that. She could totally see his lips curling up in disgust.

But his  _voice_ —

It could curdle milk and make you shiver at the same time.

Yet, even when she knew— even then— that such a relationship was utterly impossible, his death had scarred her. To survive so much only to die just because Voldemort wanted a wand—

Why hadn't he just ordered Snape to point the wand at him and disarm him to win said allegiance? Then again— had he done that, he would have realised that Severus wasn't been the master of the wand and he would have eventually worked his way to Draco, killed him, and then back to Harry.

What a mess.

As she looked up to the dais where Loki was waiting, all of the doubt and past mistakes seemed so miniscule. The look he was giving her made their latest parting seem even more irrational. She clutched Death's arm a little tighter, her breath catching in her lungs.

"Are you ready, my daughter?" Death said with a chuckle, patting her arm with his hand.

"No, not really," Hermione admitted.

"You are a wonder, daughter. Strong and fierce yet hiding such a vulnerable heart," he comforted. "But look— here is one extending his hand to you that he may hold your heart close and protect it with his own."

Hermione sniffed and nodded, trying not to burst into tears.

Death released her arm, allowing her to stand beside Loki—

Only to startle herself as Thor stepped up and a wide-eyed man in a grey tuxedo released a woman with long, light brown hair and flashing brown eyes to stand beside her.

"Um, hi!" the woman said, flustered as she soothed her dress down. "I'm, er, Jane. Jane Foster."

Hermione eyed the other woman with a bemused expression. "The world's most foremost astronomer," Hermione said, causing Jane's eyes go wide. "Jörmungandr told me that it took a score of highly trained ladies in waiting to corral you into a dress. Are you sure you wish to be here?"

Jane flushed. "I just—I mean— well yes, but—"

Hermione arched a brow, unknowingly echoing Loki's own highly chiseled eyebrows.

Jane turned an interesting shade of aubergine. "I  _want_ to marry him, just, well—" she trailed off and leaned closer to Hermione's ear. "I'm not exactly future queen material," she said in a hushed, strangled whisper.

Hermione smiled. "You'll be fine."

Jane shook her head. "H-he— He called me a goat!" she protested.

Hermione looked down and then met Jane's eyes with a slightly puckered smile. "I've been called far worse. You can do this. If you truly want it."

Thor has a worried expression as he looked at Jane.

Jane squared her shoulders and straightened her back. "Let's do this."

Odin stroked his beard as he began. "We gather here today to witness the joining of my beloved sons with those who have become nearest to their hearts. The mystery of love has always been just that— as baffling to those inside and out, but when we find that one that completes us, a moment of clarity makes all of the cosmos crystalise and make so much more sense. We don't always have to hang upside-down from the Yggdrasil to find wisdom. Sometimes it is right there in front of us."

Odin gestured to his sons, and they came to stand a little closer.

"Through your lady mother, I have learned the joys of life outside war, the vastness of a compassionate soul, and that some mysteries are only decipherable through the heart of the female, whether they be Åsgardian or any of the Realms. Do you, my sons, swear upon your honour, your life, and your very soul that you will treat she who would stand by you in times of greatness or sorrow with equality and magnanimity, compassion and understanding, and bravery in the face of danger until the end of the journey and beyond?"

"I do," Thor and Loki said together.

"And do you, Lady Hermione, Lady Jane, take Loki and Thor in times of greatness or sorrow, treat them with equality and magnanimity, compassion and understanding, and bravery in the face of danger until the end of the journey and beyond?"

"Just Thor," Jane said in a strangled whisper, giving Loki a fearful look.

Odin gave her an odd look and waited for Hermione.

Hermione smiled, looking Loki in the eyes. "I do."

Odin took celestial ribbon and wrapped Thor and Jane's hands together and Hermione and Loki's at the same time. "With this ribbon, I bind you together on the journey of life. May you stand by each other, even when you do not agree, listen to the other even when angry, and savour the times together in peace or at war. May you be at each other's backs, never faltering, united against foe or children, whichever threatens your peace—"

Chuckles rang out amongst the gathered.

"May your strength be ever stronger together than alone, but may you be strong by yourself knowing the other is never too far. May you grow your family strong as you protect what you love that others look upon you and be inspired by what could be if they put their mind and heart into it."

"From this time on," he said as the ribbon sank into their flesh and seemed to disappear, "you are one as husband and wife, friend, companion, battleguard, and shieldmate. May you never remain angry. May your houses' hearths always burn strongly. May your weapons never fail you, and your minds be ever open to the other. This journey through life you now walk through together, forever one in the Realms, blessed by the Yggdrasil, witnessed by the Norns and all of those gathered here."

"You may now exchange weapons," Odin said.

"Weapons?" Jane hissed, "what weapons?"

"Traditionally, the Old Norse would exchange family swords to symbolise the merging of the two families. The wife would save the sword of her husband for her firstborn son, and the husband would do the same for their daughter." Hermione found herself being stared at by Jane. "What? Don't you read?"

Loki held out fine daggers and held them out to Hermione. Hermione, having been prepared by Jörmungandr and Fenrir, pulled out two daggers made from the shed fangs of both the world-serpent and the world-wolf, shrunken by magic and carved in relief. Each were covered in delicate runes inlaid with shimmering stone. Loki's eyes grew wide with delight as they both tucked the weapons away on their person.

All eyes descended upon Jane and Thor.

Thor extended an ancient sword that was both well loved and well kept, having been passed down through the ages until it finally came to him.

Jane looked notably uncomfortable. "Thor! I don't have a sword!"

"What do you mean you don't have a sword. Everyone has a sword."

"I don't think the Nerf sword I played with my baby brother as a child counts, Thor!"

Whispers were starting in the audience.

Hermione surreptitiously plucked one of Jane's hairs and transfigured it into a sword and scabbard, thrusting it into her hand.

Jane startled. "Oh."

The pair awkwardly exchanged blades.

Odin slammed Gungnir on the ground.  
"I now pronounce you husband and wife!"

"Hurray!" Tony Stark said from the seating. "Let's eat! I'm  _ **starving**_!"

Bruce Banner rolled his eyes. "We can't take you anywhere."

"This isn't right," Steven Rogers muttered. "He tries to subjugate the freedom of United States and we have to watch his wedding?"

"Oh, let's not forget the world. Just focus on the good ol' U.S. of A.," Tony muttered.

"What ever happened to forgiveness and reform is possible?" Natasha asked.

"Not for him," Rogers said.

"Yeah, well, I don't forgive you either," Tony said.

"For what?"

"Your horrible fashion sense," Stark replied. "It's so forties."

Steve glowered at Tony.

"Do I need to stick you both full of arrows?" Hawkeye asked, standing up to walk to the reception area. "I don't know about you, but seeing as we are surrounded in gods, sorcerers, sorceresses, witches, wizards, giant world-eating beasts, hellhounds, and slavering beasts from Helheim, I'm just going to enjoy the food and the infamous Hel-mead."

"This isn't Halloween, Hawkeye," Banner said.

"It's  _always_ Halloween here, Bruce," Hawkeye replied.

Black Widow took Bruce by the hand and dragged him off. "They have the cute little mini-chickens for dinner!" she exclaimed as she lead him off to the reception.

"Mini— chickens?" Steve asked, arching a brow.

"Quail," Hawkeye translated. "She forgets words when she's excited."

"Oh."

Dr Strange walked by as Hawkeye attempted to keep Tony Stark and Steve Rogers from killing each other with ominous glares alone.

"And you think sorcerers have issues," he muttered, making his way to the refreshments.

"At least  _ **I**_ don't float around in my pyjamas, Mr Supreme Pawpaw."

Stephen rolled his eyes and continued walking. "At least  _my_ jammies are comfortable." He waved his hand, and Stark's clothes were exchanged with a chicken suit, complete with realistic, albeit bright red and gold, plumage.

Hawkeye sighed, rubbing his temples. "Don't  _ever_ mess with sorcerers."

* * *

Odin tilted his head as he watched Hermione "dancing" with Fenrir, guiding the wolf in strangely coordinated moves. Fenrir danced on all fours with Hermione holding his muzzle in her hands as she lay her head against the top of his muzzle.

"I never expected to see that," Odin confessed.

Frigga smiled warmly. "She heals more than just Loki with her loving presence," she said. "Fenrir has not trusted anyone since Hel— and we  _all_ know that was a terrible relationship."

"I have never seen Loki so— content," Odin admitted as he watched jealous Jörmungandr spit water at Fenrir so he could get a hug in too. Hermione was laughing giving the serpent a hug around his nostrils.

Jörmungandr tongue flicked, tickling her just before Fenrir launched at his brother, snarling and thumping into him, throwing the serpent's head into the sand. They both snarled and made fanged faces at each other. Hermione laughed, patting them both.

"Does she know they are playing?" one of the guards asked.

"She seems to," Odin said.

"But what if she's wrong?"

"She trusts them, so they trust her."

"But they are not trustworthy—" the guard protested.

"They are to her," Frigga said. She watched her sons talking by the honey-mead barrel. Loki sipped his but barely, but Thor was enjoying quite a bit of the exotic mead. Seeing how Jane was draped over a puzzled-looking Garmr, perhaps Thor's new wife had had a bit much already.

"Did someone give her some Hel-mead?" Odin asked.

"No," Frigga said. "I believe she said it was champagne. A celebratory Midgardian beverage."

Odin shrugged. "I was unaware that Miðgarðr had such powerful libations."

"Miðgarðr has always had various drinks, my husband. They simply do not have the same strength as some of the other realms," Frigga said with a chuckle. She eyed her husband with a critical eye. "Husband. You had fought against our son marrying the Midgardian for a long time. What changed your mind?"

Odin rubbed at his eye patch. "It was no god of Åsgard that tamed Fenrir and Jörmungandr, turned Garmr from murder, and created a guardian to keep the souls in Helheim from wandering away. It was a Midgardian. And if one woman of Miðgarðr can do what countless Asgardians cannot, then perhaps she is not alone in being capable of great feats worthy of the gods. Perhaps they just need the time in which to prove it— and as you said before, my wife. Nothing is fiercer than a mother."

Frigga smiled. "No, my husband. To defend one's children and family is a natural thing."

A fluffy purple spider skittered by carrying countless babies on her back.

"Hurry, Mum!" the babies cried. "We don't want to miss the cake!"

HehehehhehEHHEHEHEHEeeeeh! A hippogryph whinnied, punting Tony Starke into one of the cakes. It licked the icing and cake off his head.

A clutter of spiders arrived out of the aether and deposited a replacement cake.

"Gosh, that was rude."

"Indeed."

"Good thing we had s pares!"

"Spiderse are always prepared."

They each took a small cupcake shaped snack from the nearby table. Each had a plump fly on the top.

"She's always thinking of us!"

"She's the best!"

"Flies for all of us!"

"Hey don't push!"

"Sorry."

"Let's go spin the silk linens!"

"Okay!"

"Wait for me guys!"

Odin held his wife's hand. "I think Lady Hermione has much to teach us, but for now, I think our son and our future grandchild needs her more. It is about time he had the joy of life within him again."

"It is what we wanted from the start, my husband," Frigga agreed. "For our children to grow up and find happiness in the life they have and not the life they do not."

"I can only hope that Thor's children and Loki's do not end up destroying the world as they attempt to smother each other in battle," Odin said sombrely.

"Give them a few thousand years to grow up first, my darling," Frigga said teasingly. "Destruction of worlds starts by school age."

Odin gave his wife a  _look_ as Hawkeye separated Stark and Rogers in their drunken brawl over the last "mini-chicken" only to have a wandering hippogriff snatch if up and carry it off.

"That's totally not fair," Tony said, grunting.

Pepper sipped her coffee. "I saw nothing."

There was a loud yell as Hagrid broke away from talking with Minerva to attempt to make friends with Garmr. The hellhound had sat on him, leaving on his head sticking out from under her tail.

"My love," Loki said. "Your hellhound seems to have sat upon someone."

Hermione looked over with some concern. "Oh, that's Hagrid. He gets on with all the animals and beasts like that."

"He always get sat upon?"

"At least it isn't shat upon?" Hermione suggested.

"Hn," Loki said, not quite convinced. "Do we assist or do we sell tickets?"

Fenrir and Garmr seemed to decide that Hagrid made a lovely chew toy, and they carried him out to the beach to drag him around.

Harry came up. "Oh— totally saw that coming," he said, sipping his drink. "I do love Hagrid, but he has no real sense when approaching huge beasts."

"It's the giant in him," Minerva sighed. "Gives him more resistance to harm than humans."

"I do not see him surviving long in Jötunheimr," Loki said, rubbing his chin.

"Loki, to be fair, there are not many who could survive in Jötunheimr."

"You did," Loki said, recalling.

"Yes, but I'm slightly more prepared. And you, buster, are  _still_ not forgiven for throwing me into a portal to Jötunheimr like that."

Loki pouted. "You survived."

"Only because I landed on a frost beast, killing it, and the hunting party thought I'd just successfully passed the Rite of the Hunter single-handedly!"

"Look at the benefits!"

Hermione scowled.

"You'll never want for allies in Jötunheimr," Loki said.

"Bully for me," Hermione said, glowering. The aether serpents hissed from her head, preparing to spit venom in Loki's direction.

Hagrid landed in a heap nearby, liberally covered in sand and fern leaves. Fenrir and Garmr had given up on their toy for more play with Jörmungandr.

"Beasts be a little bit unruly," Hagrid said, standing up. "I'd love to hear how you got them."

Hermione frowned, but Luna walked up, sipping a coconut with a straw. "That was easy, Hagrid. Hermione just had a great conversation with them and they swore eternal allegiance."

"Luna, why do you make that sound so simple?" Harry asked.

"Seemed pretty straightforward to me," Luna said. "Oh look. Father is dancing with Fenrir. Isn't he cute?" Luna walked off to join her father in dancing with Fenrir.

"That's my wife," Harry snickered. "She dances with wolves."

Hermione laughed, giving him a hug. "Come on, let's go dance and have some cake before those troublemakers land in the second cake."

Harry grinned. "That sounds like a great—"

_**KERSMASSSSSHHHHHH!** _

Ronald Bilius Weasley had landed headfirst in cake number two.

Two highly annoyed mini-quetzalcoatls spat venom into his eyes before moving on further into the garden.

Overturned goblets of Hel-mead dribbled off the side of the table into Ron's mouth. He sputtered and thrashed as his magic reacted violently to the otherworldly alcohol. His body shrank and jerked until he had transformed into a very small, very furry, ginger hamster.

Everyone turned to look at Dr Strange.

"Oh, don't everybody look at  _me_. My wards tend to vapourise, not transfigure."

The crowd then turned to look at Harry.

"Well,  _ **I**_ didn't do it!" Harry blurted.

Luna serenely sipped from her coconut cocktail. "Oh, huh— I could have sworn I specified geranium, but perhaps I enunciated that a bit poorly?"

"So… who gets to tell Molly?"

"Are they even on speaking terms anymore?" Hermione asked.

"I'll do it," Loki said brightly, volunteering.

All the guests chorused at once.

" _ **No!"**_

Loki frowned. "Killjoys."

Minerva just shook her head. " _I'll_  do it."

"I'll help," Kingsley said, having graciously cleaned up the cake debris. "They might want to commit murder by stepping on him."

Hermione gave the pouting Loki a tender kiss on the nose.

"I'm pretty sure I can make it up to you later, love." She rubbed her abdomen and smiled.

Loki smiled back. He placed his hand on her cheek, brushing one of her curls behind her ear.

"Everything is just as it should be." He leaned in and gave her a gentle kiss.

Meanwhile… far away in San Francisco—

The Golden Gate Bridge spontaneously transformed into a dragon and, giving a mighty roar, it flew off for parts unknown.

Further away in Åsgard, Heimdall sighed, shook his head and pinched the bridge of his nose.

The God of Mischief was alive and well.

* * *

 **A/N:**  Happy Halloween, everyone! My last test almost  _killed_ me. *sob* I hope to see some great costumes this year. Here's hoping!

Thank The Dragon and the Rose for staying up past her Pumpkin Hour to beta this chapter.


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